Three Little Birds
by Weezila
Summary: The story of three little birds and how truly screwed up and perfect family can be.
1. Unmarked Grave

Jason was dead.

Jason was dead, and Bruce was working hard in the cave, probably going to kill himself from work overload in the next few days. He wouldn't even leave to go to Wayne Enterprises, or even when Alfred demanded he take a break.

But Alfred probably didn't have it in him to put up a proper fuss about it. He was sad too.

Jason was dead, and Tim was crying like he couldn't stop. Dick would cry later, he was sure of it, but not now. Right now, he had things to do, places to be.

Because right now, Young Justice had disbanded and Jason was dead. Dick's brothers and sister had moved on, and his true brother was in an unmarked grave on the outskirts of Gotham because Jason Todd, the adopted ward of Bruce Wayne, had simply run away: he hadn't died.

He ran away because it was too much of a coincidence for Robin, the Boy Wonder, to die the same night as Jason Todd. People would notice, people would feel twice the grief, and the Bats couldn't have that, now could they?

But it didn't matter to Dick, because Jason Todd was the one who was dead, but Robin wasn't. Robin wasn't dead because Tim was crying over an old black and yellow cape that had once been Dick's, but now stained with someone else's blood. Dick didn't want to know if Alfred was going to try and clean it or just get a new cape. Tim probably would never put that cape on anyway.

And Dick didn't care, what cape he wore. Dick didn't even care if he even wore a cape at all, or if he just went to school on Monday pretending like his brother wasn't dead, simply run away, and never stepped out onto the streets of Gotham at night again.

In fact, Dick would be really ok with that.

But he knew that wasn't going to happen.

No, Tim would go to school on Monday and roll his eyes at his stupid brother's ridiculous antics, playing the perfect part as he nodded in slight grief when his peers gossiped about how the Boy Wonder had been rumored to have been killed by the Joker. Tim was good like that, he could do it perfectly.

And even more, Tim would be out on patrol in the next two weeks, with some rigorous training Bruce was no doubt setting up as they sat here, Tim crying and Dick thinking, and be ready to fill the shoes of Robin, just like Jason had when Dick got tired.

Dick wasn't tired of being a hero, but he had grown tired of being the Boy Wonder as he was so obviously not a boy anymore. He was a teenager, and he'd donned a black suit and followed invisibly behind Batman and Robin, working on hacking from a distance and practicing his stealth. Once Jason had become used to being Robin, he'd even gone his own way, patrolling Crime Alley all night alone while giving the new Dynamic Duo their space and sometimes heading home early to Mt. Justice and watching a movie with Wally or one of his teammates.

He was Robin at Mt. Justice, and with the League, but Jason was Robin in Gotham.

And now he wasn't, because he was dead.

And Young Justice had decided to split a week ago, deciding they could be heroes on their own. Oh, they'd keep in touch, lend a hand when needed, because after all they were still family, but they would go their own ways.

And then Jason had died.

Dick didn't even tell his team about his real name yet, no one but Wally knew he had a brother, that he had two.

He could call Wally, tell him what happened… but the speedster was busy. He wouldn't bother him right now.

Not that Dick was upset his friend had moved on somewhat.

Barry Allen had wanted to take a step down from being Flash— just a little bit—he wanted to work as the scientist he was, and focus more on that instead of constantly being called off-world by the League. Fastest man alive or not, he couldn't be in two places at once.

Well, unless he gave Wally his suit and pretended he was.

Wally was still KF most of the time, but when Barry needed a break, the scarlet suit was still in use. But that meant Wally was busier than ever.

And Dick was happy for his best friend, because this was exactly what the young speedster had always dreamed of, and he was truly ready for it. This was how the progression of the title should happen: with tradition and happiness.

Not like this.

Not with the old owner of the cape in an unmarked grave and the new replacement crying in broken sobs.

It was nearly two am when Tim had finally stopped crying, and both brothers glanced as Dick's laptop beeped.

Everything was set then.

"What is that?' Tim asked in a whisper.

Dick didn't answer, but packed up the computer in the bag beside his desk and slung it over his shoulder. He stood over his brother and offered him a hand.

"Come on," He said gently, just as quiet at the whisper. "Let's go for a walk."

Tim didn't respond but took his hand and let himself be guided out Dick's bedroom and through Wayne Manor, out onto the dark basketball court.

Three brothers had once played their heart outs here. But it was dark now.

"Where're you going?" Tim asked miserably, not looking up from the ground.

Dick sighed heavily. Of course Tim would figure it out. He was the new Robin after all, and he knew his brothers like that back of his hand.

Well… he knew Dick.

"Don't know." Dick said honestly.

"You're not coming back…" Tim realized, his voice nothing more than a breath.

"I'll always come back for you, Timmy. Be it an end-of-the-world situation, or a dad's-getting-on-my-nerves-and-I-want-to-talk-to-someone situation, just remember our code and nothing will stop me from getting back here, go it?" Dick said firmly, and Tim nodded weakly.

Dick sighed again, gently taking Tim's chin and lifting his head to look in his eyes.

"You know why I'm leaving?" He asked softly.

Tim's eyes filled with water involuntarily, and he made to look away in shame, but Dick held him there. Slowly, after a few tears had fallen, he nodded.

Dick smiled weakly, pulling the smaller boy into a hug. "I love you Timbo, you hear me? Don't let dad get you down. Don't let him push you away either."

"Just come back and visit you idiot," Tim mumbled against Dick's midsection where his face was buried. "In one piece, please." He added so softly, he almost didn't hear him.

Dick chuckled softly. "Will do. I'll try my hardest."

"Find another team or something," Tim mumbled. "Keep them safe so they can keep you safe."

Dick looked down at his brother, who looked up at him just to make sure he didn't think he was joking.

"That's… actually not a bad idea." Dick allowed. "Maybe I can find Beast Boy. I hear he quit the Doom Squad. M'gann will be worried about him."

"Right…" Tim said offhandedly.

"Hey…" Dick said, catching the smaller boy's attention again. "I _will_ be back. Not for dad, for you. I promise, heaven and hell could not stop me, understand?"

Tim nodded before looking miserably back down at the ground.

Dick sighed. This would not be an easy goodbye, no matter what he did.

"Listen, Tim…" Tim looked back up at him with sad eyes. Dick sighed. He was sighing a _lot_ tonight. "Look… in about an hour or so, dad's gonna be pissed. Not just pissed, but pissed at _me_ and he'd going to have some pretty good reasons, beyond simply finding out I'm gone."

"He probably already knows you're out the door." Tim reminded him, and Dick smiled at the truth in that statement, but didn't elaborate.

"Yeah… but he doesn't know about this next bit. And… and I'm not ashamed of it either. I'm doing this for Jason, understand? So when dad goes ape shit… just…"

"Just do it for Jason." Tim said in a surprisingly stern voice. Dick looked at him and saw his pale blue eyes suddenly lit up with fire. So, Tim probably guessed what Dick was going to do, and was behind him a hundred percent.

"Dad won't approve." Dick reminded him.

"And Dad would never have the balls to do it." Tim said in the same steely voice. He looked Dick square in the eye. "So you do it."

Dick stared back for a moment.

He nodded once. "Keep yourself out of trouble then."

"You first." Tim nodded back.

"By little brother," Dick smiled, grabbing him in one last hug and the jogging away and easily jumping the fence blocking the court.

"Bye…" Tim whispered, staring at the empty court left behind.


	2. Mista J

There was a break out from Arkam Asylum, at exactly 2:28 a.m.; just over 24 hours after Jason Todd had been killed by said mental prison's newest occupant.

The Joker had been there less than 12 hours, but wasn't complaining as the prison's systems shut down for some unexplained, untraceable reason, and over half the occupants bolted, overpowering their sorely outnumbered guards, who, in all honesty, were probably really used to that by now.

Many prisoners found themselves grouped as they were cut off by traffic lanes, cop cars blocking alley ends, and buildings and fences too high to scale, so they couldn't split off in their own directions. That was how the Joker, Harley Quinn, the Penguin, the Riddler, and Poison Ivy all ended up in the same warehouse a couple miles away from Arkam Asylum, panting heavily and totally not impressed with the company they'd been stuck with.

Not that they disliked each other, it was just that they all knew Batman was coming after the Joker first, which probably meant they'd be back in jail by morning.

"You _had_ to follow _us!"_ The Penguin complained, but the Joker just laughed maniacally at him.

"Shut up shuga!" Harley smirked at him. "You's were followin' us, now weren't'chya?"

"Waddling, more like it." Ivy sniffed in distaste at the snooty Penguin-man.

"I resent that." The Penguin grumbled.

"And I was so looking forward to a few weeks of freedom." The Riddler pouted. "Ah well, best we depart and pray Batman's too busy capturing this fool to track us down tonight." He jerked his thumb at Joker and getting up to leave.

"Batman's not coming tonight." A calm voice said and they all spun and faced the shadows as a figure stepped out, revealing his silhouette.

"Oh, and you're sure about that?" Ivy rolled her eyes. "You obviously don't know the Bat!" She scoffed.

"Are _you_ sure about that?" The figure said evenly—_too_ calmly—as he stepped out of the shadows. He wasn't more than fifteen or sixteen, with dark tussled hair, dressed in a pitch black standard-army-looking garb, with a golden belt and a simple domino mask over his eyes.

"Boy Blunder!" The Joker screeched happily, making everyone jump a bit.

"Nice outfit- get tired of color?" The Riddler mocked.

Dick didn't react in any way.

"So what're you doing here out of costume and sans Bat?" The Penguin huffed in annoyance.

"He's come to _play!"_ The joker yelled in some twisted joy, clapping his hands happily. "Ya know, that second Boy Blunder wasn't _nearly_ as fun as this one! He didn't even find my jokes funny!" He laughed like he couldn't stop, and knowing him, he probably couldn't.

"Mista Jay…! This one doesn't seem to find you funny!" Harley complained, getting a slightly worried look on her face as she realized the Boy Wonder wasn't even cracking a smile.

Oddly… _Batman-_like of him.

Joker waved her off. "He's just put out I hurt Boy Blunder 2! The original's come to play…!" He grinned madly.

"Boy Blunder 2? How many are there?" Ivy cocked her head to the side, watching the original Boy Blunder carefully.

"I'm not Robin anymore, Joker." Dick growled dangerously, in perfect likeness to his father, causing all the villains save Joker to jump and take a few scrambling steps back.

"Geeze! What's got your cape in a twist!" The Riddler cried nervously.

Dick glared his best Batglare at the Joker, smiled back without fear.

Then, his maniac eyes lit up.

"Ooooo….! Oooo, this is _too_ good to be true…! Is it so? Tell me it is! Tell me a finally got that little bird… clipped his wings, didn't I? That's why Bats isn't here, taking care of his poor little lost bir-"

Before Joker could finish Dick pulled a gun out from behind his back in one swift movement. Three shots fired out consecutively and Joker slumped to the floor.

Harley and Ivy screamed, the others blanching in shock and fear.

"MISTA JAY!" Harley screeched, but the Riddler grabbed her and dragged her back from the scene before them.

Joker started to laugh.

He was on his knees, tilted awkwardly to the side, but none of his injuries were fatal, and with his psychosis he probably didn't even feel any pain. One in his shoulder, one in his side, and in his thigh. Painful—for a normal person—but not fatal if treated in the next couple hours.

"Since when do you _shoot people?"_ The Riddler freaked.

"Bats don't kill… doesn't mean we can't." Dick said, way too calmly for the situation as he lowered the gun.

"Well… would you look at that…" Joker taunted through bursts of giggles. "Little Birdy's got a gun…! What would the Bat say?" He chuckled.

'We're not on speaking terms at the moment." Dick said evenly, as if he hadn't just shot the man—scratch that, _monster—_ who killed his brother. "And suffice to say, after letting half the criminals I helped put away out onto the streets, he won't have reason to speak to me again." He said casually, slipping the gun back into the holster behind his back.

"Y-you…_you_ let us out?!" Ivy shrieked.

"No… I let _him_ out." Dick growled, not taking his icy stare off the madman on his knees, laughing even though he was bleeding profusely.

"And why would a goody-two-shoes such as yourself do _that?"_ Penguin demanded.

"Aw, he's just happy to see me! I killed the little Boy Blunder! He wants to thank me for it, riiiiiiight?" Joker laughed at him.

Dick stared impassively at him.

"I should kill you." He deadpanned coldly, causing the other villains to take a step back again. "I should kill you… but I won't. I've toed the line enough tonight, and I'm don't think I'll be crossing it any time soon. Not for you at least."

He pulled up his wrist computer and typed in a code. Almost immediately, Joker went ridged, his face frozen in a maniacal grin.

"What'a'ya doin' to 'im?!" Harley squeaked.

Dick raised one cold eyebrow.

"You didn't think I was shooting bullets, did you? I haven't gone _that_ rogue. It's a tranquilizer gun, modified for my… purposes."

"Sedatives don't work on that freak!" Penguin snapped.

"I know that." Dick said calmly. "It's my own little mix." He walked forward and looked down at Joker, who was still frozen from whatever the drugs were doing to him.

"It's a little mix I put together: adderall, risperidone, lorazapam, and mizdericion. Adderall is what college kids take to keep focused for long periods of time, resperidone is an industrial strength anti-psycotic, lorazapam is a heavy grade depressant and is what doctors give people over dosing from LCD, and mizdericion is my own little invention. It attacks the part of the brain called the ventromedial frontal lobe, or in layman's terms, your funny bone."

Dick leaned down and looked into Joker's maddening gray eyes. His blood red lips were frozen in their forced smile, but for once… for the first time since Dick had known him… there was little humor in the grin. It was so forced it looked painful… that is, if Dick believed the monster of a man before him had any humanity left to even feel the pain.

"Good luck laughing now." Dick snarled at him, straightening up and turning to walk away.

"MISTA JAY!" He heard Harley screech again as she collapsed on the ground next to her partner, shaking him violently. Dick knew it would do no good for at least a week until the drugs finally started to wear off.

One week without a single laugh from Joker.

That might be a Gotham first.

"Y-you broke the Joker…!" Ivy spluttered weakly. Dick turned back to her with one raised eyebrow. "You're… you're supposed to be the good guy!" She cried. The others looked like they agreed.

He let that sink in. "Yes, well, he killed my little brother." Dick said simply, and they all stared at him in shock at that new revelation.

"Hero or no, Joker or not, Batman or no Batman, _**no one**_ hurts my family and lives happily ever after." Dick said so low they almost didn't hear him.

He turned away again, facing his back to them.

"Goodbye, Uncle J, catch you on the flipside." He said casually, stepping forward and instantly disappearing into the shadows.


	3. Silent Thank You

After his little show in the warehouse, Dick was absolutely sure of about three things.

One: he didn't feel better at all.

If anything, he actually felt _worse._

Not because of guilt, but more because now that it was said and done, Jason was still dead and even though the Joker wouldn't be laughing for a few weeks, Jason was _still_ gone and in an unmarked grave, and now Dick had no other purpose, no other plan beyond hurting the joker. The Joker was hurt, so now what?

No, he felt lost, not guilty.

He had no qualms about what he did to Joker, and was already making plans to return to Gotham once a year with a new and improved bullet, just in honor of his brother, to whom he knew would have killed Joker immediately if it'd been him or Tim to get killed.

Dick briefly wondered where this break of conscience came from, but he decided he really didn't care. He wouldn't kill the Joker, out of some old long lost faith in his father and the nagging feeling in the back of his brain that told him killing Batman's arch enemy might not be the best thing for the Bat's mental health, and therefore the city's survival, combined with the small hope that he hadn't completely obliterated his and his father's relationship by going "rouge" like he was.

He recognized that it should probably bother him more that, if not for those reasons, he would have killed the Joker five minutes ago, instead of just drugging the hell out of him.

If Dick believed that turning around and shooting Joker with a _real_ gun this time would make the aching pain in his chest feel at all better, he probably would. Perhaps for his own heart, perhaps a bit for the tortured rage in Tim's eye as he asked his big brother to go through with this.

But he didn't believe it would make a difference, and he didn't want to destroy the one chance he had at ever going home again just for that madman.

Still, he didn't feel any better than he had before he'd shot the Joker. He still felt like just sitting down on some random roof and crying himself senseless, he still felt like screaming at nothing and punching the nearest wall or bad guy half to death. He still felt like his world was slowly being ripped apart around him, he still felt lost and scared and angry and pained…

He still missed his brother.

Dick shook those feelings off, knowing he only had so much time to get out of Gotham and far, far away.

Because another thing he knew was the exact same thing the other criminals knew: that Batman would be coming for the Joker first.

It was a long shot, trying to get to the Joker before Batman did, because Dick knew the very second the security systems "failed" in Arkam, the Batcomputer would get an alert and Batman would be on-scene in four minutes flat. Dick knew this because he designed the security system himself, and in the rash acts of doing this while the dirt of Jason's grave wasn't even settled yet, Dick hadn't had the time to find a way to hack around it.

Dick had half expected for the Bat to appear out of the shadows while he was confronting the villains, was preparing to have to shoot his target fast and run from his father, possibly having to _fight_ him in order to escape…

But Batman never showed.

Scanning the police network as he ran across rooftops, Dick realized the police were positively freaking out because Batman wasn't answering their calls.

The _only way_ to block a security alarm from the Batcomputer was to be _at_ the Batcomputer itself and running a mock-program to give the appearance that nothing was wrong. It would work at first glance, but take Batman none-too-long to figure it out.

And _Batman_ sure as hell wasn't running that program… but it was obviously being run because here they were, a full 26 minutes after the first alarm went off in Arkam, and still no sign of Batman.

And the only person close enough and skilled enough with that computer was…

Oh god, _Tim…_

Dick froze.

_Tim_ was running the program to give Dick a head start, to give him this chance to get to the Joker. _Tim_ was going to get himself _killed_ when Batman realized his son was trying to keep things from him, and then he was going to die _again_ when Batman realized _what_ Tim was keeping from him.

Dick's instincts told him to turn around and be _in that room_ when that argument went down, because Tim wouldn't stand a chance, and he had screwed up _massively_ this time—at least in Batman's eyes. Dick was the oldest brother, the one who took the fall and covered for his little brothers, who was the only one, save Alfred, who could hope to handle his father when he got that angry, and he nearly turned around and went to go beg that Bruce blame _him_, not Tim for this.

But going back would mean that Tim's sacrifice meant nothing, and would probably do more harm than good.

The only thing Dick could to was run, _fast,_ and get far away from Gotham before Tim's time ran out and Batman caught on, which wouldn't be long at all.

It was a tribute to how well he'd trained his sons that _the goddamned Batman_ could be fooled for up to half an hour.

So Dick ran, and he fled the city he'd called home, the same city who'd called him the Prince of Gotham by day, the Boy Wonder by night. The city didn't know they were losing one of the pillars that'd kept it up these past eight years, since a little seven year old showed up in a circus tent and stayed to protect it from the evil so deeply sown into its base.

The city didn't know that tonight, not only were they losing a Boy Wonder, they were losing two.


	4. Calm on Alert

**Hello internet. **

**So, I'm not used to writing Teen Titan fanfiction, it's not really my style and they have a dynamic that I don't understand enough to write **_**well**_**, so… I'll be keeping that team's interactions to a minimum so I don't screw it up, and probably focus more on a one-on-one conversation when it comes to them…**

**Yeah, sorry TT fans!**

**Enjoy! **

*_One Year Later*_

"How the heck can you _eat_ that!" Beast Boy cried as Cyborg laughed at his friend over his nicely grilled steak.

"Easy," The larger boy smirked, pointedly taking another bite while BB gagged and pretended to faint. "This _never_ gets old…" He chuckled.

"Speak for yourself." Raven mumbled from the couch in the living area, meditating—though not really because there were others in the room, more just thinking quietly in the corner—with her legs crossed and hovering a foot above the cushions.

"Oh, leave him alone, Cy." Nightwing scolded gently, but he was grinning in amusement at Beast Boy's discomfort as well.

"Who's side are you on?" Cy accused good naturedly.

"I'm on the side I get the most enjoyment from… which happens to be yours." Nightwing laughed as BB stood up again, and promptly turned green –uh, _more_ green—at the sight of the steak again.

"And we find enjoyment in friend Beast Boy's discomfort?" Starfire asked, a bit confused.

"Yes we do Star, a _lot_ of enjoyment." Wing grinned back, laughing again as BB started trying to convince Cyborg to try some of his salad… which didn't go over very well.

"Wing, there's a signal going off on the main computer with your signature." Raven called. Wing departed the kitchen and moved over to the main computer in front of where Raven sat, thinking/meditating.

"Did you see what kind?" He asked as he passed her.

"A 'found' alert for one of those searches you're always running." She said simply, not opening her eyes.

He turned and found that indeed, apparently one of his programs designed to continuously search the known internet and beyond, had found something. He was always searching for _something_: a lead, any news concerning certain criminals or high profile targets, new concerning his past that his current team wouldn't understand, or pretty much anything useful that could be used later.

He opened the found file and his stomach plummeted.

Raven opened one eye.

"Wing? You ok? You're giving off a lot of… strange emotions… rather loudly." She said carefully, almost wary.

Wing couldn't collect himself enough to respond.

"Nightwing?" Raven repeated, louder this time. He felt her move and stand behind him, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the message.

"Dude, you ok?" Cyborg's voice called over, Nightwing's odd behavior catching their attention.

Nightwing jerked himself out of it.

"Yeah, just some surprising news is all." He said, forcing his voice to remain calm and casual. Only Raven could tell how truly messed up he was inside.

"You're not ok." She murmured as the others went back to their joking around. She glanced over his shoulder at what he was seeing too, but Nightwing knew she wouldn't be able to made heads or tails of it.

"Please Ray, just… give me a moment." He murmured back, letting some of his panic seep into his voice.

Slowly but surely he pulled himself together. His brain took over, his heart stopped beating a mile a minute, he started to think, and think _hard. _

How could this have happened? Perhaps he was interpreting it wrong… no, it wasn't possible, it wouldn't be said if it weren't _exactly_ what was meant, he was sure of it. But then… now what?

"I'm impressed." He was ripped away from his thoughts at Raven's dry tone. "I've never met anyone who could school his emotions like that. It's always interesting to watch." She said, moving a few steps back now that she didn't sense that Nightwing was going to collapse in broken sobbing any second.

"Practice." He breathed, not turning to face her, but still staring at the screen in front of him.

"What language is that? I don't recognize it, and I thought I was decent with Earth dialects." She asked as she sat back down on the couch.

"It's not a written language." He said in a forced calm, his panic spiking again as he considered _who'd_ sent it… and why…

He shook it off, focusing on thinking again.

"I'm primarily spoken," He continued, "But I adapted it to be written in case of emergencies..."

That caught her attention.

"And… is this an emergency?" She asked warily.

He hesitated, then sighed heavily. "Not for us. Not for you guys, I should say. I… I may have to look into it, for a couple days."

She was standing again, this time in defiance.

"We're your team, Wing, let us help you." She said evenly, but he could still hear the slight undertone of anger underneath it.

Finally, he turned and gave her a easy smile, but he knew she knew it was fake.

"This isn't a mission, it's… a family matter." He said reluctantly, and bit too tensely to keep up the easy-going aura.

She blinked, surprised.

Apart from being a good leader, an excellent fighter, and a bit of an obsessively-driven hero, she and the rest of the Teen Titans knew very little about Nightwing. This was the first time he even so much as hinted he had been anything but the vigilante Nightwing all his life. In fact, she'd heard Beast Boy's ridiculous theories about how Nightwing wasn't "born", he'd simply popped into existence as a full-grown (or half grown, as he was still only sixteen or seventeen) crime-fighter.

This was out of the blue to say the _very_ least, and suddenly his mixed up emotions didn't seem so alarming.

After all, she had troubles with her family too.

"You want… to go look into this?" She asked slowly.

He pursed his lips. "I… have an obligation. I'm sure you understand… family…" He let it hang in the air, and for what felt like the thousandth time since meeting him, Raven got the feeling the Nightwing knew a lot more about her than he was letting on. He did that constantly: play dumb even though you _knew_ he already knew, or act like a smart mouth know-it-all when he didn't need to. It was like he was messing with their heads, just trying to test the waters around him and see what others knew, keeping his own information so close to his chest they might as well be embedded in his heart. This give and take of information that constantly went on with him was ridiculous, and even with her powers, she never knew what he was gaining or what he did/didn't know.

He was a mystery, and here he was offering up that one little bit of information more willing than he ever had before.

"I'll cover for you," She finally said, and his eyes flashed to hers. "If… only if you tell me who you're going for."

Nightwing seemed genuinely surprised at that, but not unwilling.

"My brother." He said, but it didn't escape her notice the way his breath caught on his words like he couldn't believe he was saying them aloud.

She nodded to him. "Then go. So far as everyone's concerned, you're taking a few days off to see an old friend who's in town. You'll be back in a couple days."

"Yes, I will." He nodded back to her, managing a smile, though it was quickly marred by the flood of fear and dread building in his chest.

She noted this carefully, but said nothing as she sat down once more and tried to meditate again.

Suddenly, the emotions were gone and she knew he'd done his 'ninja thing' again and disappeared.


	5. Jaybird Flies Again

_Little Bird, _

_Little Bird, _

_Jaybird Flies again. _

_Fly home on the wind. _

…

The message rang in Dick's ears, hearing the Romani Gypsy tongue echo in his brain even though the words had never been spoken aloud. It was a verbal language, even in typed words it was like they came to life, like they couldn't bear to be tied down on any sort of paper or computer screen.

And it wasn't some freak accident, that message, it wasn't some random person deciding to post the note on some comment section of YouTube or some blog or _anywhere,_ because it had all the signatures that marked it as a Bat message.

Repeat the recipient, declare the situation, send the command. Post it somewhere inconspicuous, but meaningful, like adding a comment to a story on the national news website. Phrase it carefully to show who sent it, make it short and cryptic, and never use it unless it's an emergency.

It fit all the parameters, which was how Nightwing knew what to set his search programs to look for. Tim hadn't used this method of contacting him so far, though every Bat knew to keep a sharp eye out for such communication: which is why Nightwing had to be twice as careful.

If he'd gotten the signal, Batman most definitely got it too. Hell, Alfred and Barbara probably know too, and if what the message implies is really true…

Jason knows as well.

_Jason_…

Nightwing gripped his doorframe a bit too tightly and felt the wood splinter a bit beneath his fingers.

_It…. It can't… _He couldn't even squash the hope starting to build in his chest to be suspicious. He quickly changed out of his Nightwing suit and put it away—something he hadn't done for nearly a year—and found his old, simple black army get-up. This was a stealth mission after all.

He slipped what he needed into an over-the-shoulder black messenger bag and silently slipped through the tower to the garage. He took his motorcycle and was out of Jump city's limits in less than an hour after getting the message, the echoing words driving him forward without thought.

0000000000000

Tim was standing on the basketball court where he last saw his big brother over a year ago, waiting for the same boy to appear through the same shadows he'd disappeared into.

_Please Dick…_ He begged silently. He'd only sent the message that morning, but as the sun began to sink and cast the world into a mix of blue and gray shades of dusk, he half expected to see a set of familiar blue eyes appear before him like a ghost.

The terrible part was that it wouldn't be the first ghost he'd encountered that day.

Some part of his brain told him Dick would be hesitant to come to the Manor, fearing what Bruce would think. And really, if Bruce were awake right then, Dick wouldn't be able to set foot on the property without being confronted by a fully-grown rather-pissed Bat.

Still, the message should have conveyed there was no danger, and he must just be waiting for dark, just in case. After all, message or no message, this was still Bat home-territory, and Dick probably never thought he'd be setting foot back here for quite some time.

A year was short, in the grand scheme of things, but it had been long enough for Tim. Too long even.

"Hey Timmy…" A painfully familiar voice slide out the shadows, followed closely by the outline of a man. No, not a man, a teenager, but he was slightly taller, leaner, more muscular than Tim had been expecting. His voice was lower, rougher, yet the exact same gentleness the new Boy Wonder had been dying to hear for the past 12 months.

Tim didn't say anything, he simply lunged forward and grabbed his brother in a hug. The older boy seemed shocked, even thrown off-guard a bit, but returned the hug happily.

"Miss me then?" Dick said lightly, and Tim let out an impatient sigh.

"Of course you moron."He quipped, taking a step back from their hug and looking up at his brother. Dick had a domino mask on with the black suit he wore when trying not to be seen, but as he looked down at his brother, he peeled the cover off and Tim was greeted with a pair of twinkling sapphire eyes.

God he missed those eyes.

"Not that I'm not over the moon to see you too, but are we going to run into the Bat anytime soon?" Dick asked, and Tim shook his head.

"No, he's… Dad's out for the count." Suddenly everything that had happened in the past forty eight hours came crashing down on him again. Tim knew he must've gone pale judging by Dick suddenly overprotective, over-worried, "big brother" reaction.

"Hey, hey, hey! Are you ok, kid? What happened? What's wrong with Dad?" Dick asked worriedly, putting his hands on Tim's shoulder's for comfort.

And it was a comfort, Tim felt like the world was being lifted off his shoulders.

Dick was here, he'd make this better. He'd help them figure it out.

That moment was gone as soon as it'd appeared when he realized he'd have to vocalize what was wrong. He really, really, _really _didn't want to be the one to tell Dick, but it was either find out from Bruce – which would _not_ be pretty—or from… the source itself… which would arguably be the worst case scenario _ever._

"Timmy?" Dick's gentle voice called him back from his internal panic attack.

"Jason-!" He gasped. He felt Dick's hands tighten on his shoulders a bit, and he too went pale.

"He's… alive?" Dick asked is such a small voice, suddenly Tim was the one worried about his brother.

Tim couldn't find his words again, he simply nodded mutely.

Dick sunk to the ground, cross-legged on the court, hands cradling his head. Tim sat next to him, leaning into his side for comfort as they shared the moment of disbelief, horror, pain, relief… they didn't need to describe what they felt, they both knew exactly what was going on in both their heads… and they just shared the moment.

"Do I want to know how this happened? Or why Dad is down?" Dick murmured.

"No." Tim said honestly. "But… but you need to know. You need to know because our brother is alive and kicking and…"

He trailed off, letting that statement alone hang there and marveling in it yet again.

"Have you seen him?" Dick asked, finally picking his head up and glancing at Tim, who went pale again.

"No," he breathed. "But I was on security detail yesterday, just… scanning cameras for this new… _vigilante_ we've got." His breathing picked up. "This… this new vigilante…. i-it was my job t-to research into him…"

Dick sat up straighter and put an arm around Tim's shoulder pulling him in tighter. "this new guy… I suppose he's good if Bats hasn't stopped him?" Dick asked softly.

Tim tensed. God this was hard.

"No… no, he wasn't… he _isn't…_" He looked up into Dick's eyes, his own wide with horror at the things he'd seen. "He _kills_ them Dickie. He flat out murders them." He marveled in shock.

"Who? The bad guys?" Dick frowned. "He kills the criminals he stops?" Tim shook his head slowly.

"B-but that's… no, that's not the point. The point is… he's Jason."

Tim felt Dick's arm tense around his shoulders before dropping away completely. He looked over, and Dick was sitting bolt straight, like he'd bee electrocuted. His eyes were wide, staring ahead, and their vibrant blue made the stare a bit unnerving.

"Let me get this straight," Dick said, suddenly at normal volume, seeming to forget they were being quiet and making Tim jump a bit. "Jason… _somehow_, comes back from the dead, becomes a new vigilante, and starts going on a murder spree in Gotham to get rid of all its criminals?" He concluded.

"Pretty much." Tim sighed, comforted as well as confused by his normal tone. It was a familiar rhythm for Bat children. "You forgot the part where in coming back to life he went insane and is now a homicidal maniac, but yes, pretty much."

Dick whipped his head around and his eclectic blue eyes bored into Tim's sky blue ones with shock and alarm.

"_What?"_ He gasped. Tim felt tears unwillingly spring forth in his eyes as images of the things he'd seen Red Hood do flashed before his mind's eye, and he looked down and away, ashamed.

"Yeah…" He muttered.

"Oh Tim," Dick's gentle voice was back, and he felt the older boy's arms wrap tightly around him.

God he missed this. Tim got nothing from Bruce or Alfred, although he knew they loved him to death, they weren't huggy people (no duh). Barbara hugged people, but in greeting and goodbyes, and not like a family member or a sibling, not like someone who loved him so unconditionally the way Dick did, the way Jason used too (when no one was around of course).

But Dick liked to hug people. Dick needed physical contact to convey emotions, the same emotions playing out openly on his face. Tim remembered vividly the day he and Jason realized Dick had a problem with that, and just how he used to handle it.

Because they were brothers, and in the dead of night on patrol, or when one had a nightmare about the circus, the streets, or mobsters, they'd sit up and talk.

Dick's parents were huggy people, they'd held him in a close embrace for most of his life. In a circus where everyone was family, and a baby born into that family at a pit stop between a show in Moscow and one in Vienna, the circus gypsies had taken turns holding baby Dick. Dick said he was never put down until he was over a year old, not even to sleep, and then he'd learned to crawl, then walk, then trapeze. He skipped over the running part, which he couldn't do until he was five.

And then, up on the high-wires, he'd cling to his family, his parents and aunts and uncles, and they'd catch him, and he'd catch them.

Then they fell, and he was alone.

Bruce Wayne adopted him, called him his son, which Dick was forever and eternally grateful for, but Bruce Wayne didn't hug people.

Dick needed contact like air, like Bruce needed to fight crime, like Jason needed to run his mouth or punch someone who ticked him off. Dick _needed_ it, and he wasn't going to get it in his new life a Richard Grayson, adopted ward of Bruce Wayne.

But then he became Robin, and he learned to fight.

Tim couldn't stand thinking about this part. Not just his own horror, but also because he remembered quite clearly Jason's reaction to it as well, and it was… sweet of him. For such an abrasive, rough person, Jason had all but threatened god himself in anger for his big brother, flat out refusing to admit that Dick didn't need help and swearing to make sure he never had to do this again.

Because Dick was an excellent fighter, but sometimes he'd get hit.

And sometimes he'd let himself get hit. And sometimes, when he felt his worst, he'd let himself get _really_ hit, let himself get pinned or beaten or clobbered.

Just to know someone else was there.

Villains they were trying to defeat, common thugs as they stopped petty crimes, _Batman_ as they spared and trained… he'd let himself get hit, just to feel someone else's touch.

And so Jason and Tim had locked eyes and silently sworn to hug Dick as much as they could, even though neither of them were overly emotional people – Jason especially—but they'd do that for their big brother. Their big brother, who always seemed to be helping and taking care of them, so for this one thing they would take care of him.

And over time, Tim learned to love hugs form Dick. He'd never been good with lots of physical contact, but Dick always managed to make him feel safe, to give the presence of comfort and love just by wrapping an arm around him.

God he missed his big brother.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really missed you hugs." Tim said aloud, and he felt Dick chuckle weakly under his breath, seeming to know what he meant by that. "You get hugs on that new team of yours, right?" Tim demanded, slightly worried for his big brother's safety if he _wasn't_ letting his emotions out regularly.

He felt Dick lean away and glanced up into his eyes. "How'd you know I was on a team?" He asked.

Tim rolled his eyes. "Please. I suggest you join a team, you suggest you might go find Beast Boy since he quit the Doom Patrol, and the next month Beast Boy is on a brand new team in Jump City? I'm not stupid." He scoffed. "And since you're not BB, an alien girl, or a giant half-robot black dude, I think it's safe to assume you took the mantle of Nightwing. Which, again with the bird themes! I mean, really?! You didn't get enough of the 'little bird' crap when you were here? I've only been at this for a year and its old." Tim complained, and Dick let out a deep laugh, running a hand through the smaller boy's hair.

"I underestimated you, Timmy. No one else knows, right?"

Tim shook his head. "No, Dad probably would if he had the same info I did, and I _swear_ Alfred is at least suspicious, but he hasn't said a thing."

Dick sighed. "Tim, you have to understand, Alfred knows _everything._ I don't even bother trying to hid things from him."

Tim managed a smile at that. "Oh, trust me, I know." They both laughed a bit at that before falling into a stressed silence.

"So… I'm Nightwing, you're Robin, who's Jason?" Dick finally asked quietly.

Tim hesitated, taking a deep breath. "He calls himself Red Hood, for pretty much the reason you'd expect. He… he likes guns." He managed tersely.

"Jason's always liked guns, Tim." Dick reminded him in a whisper.

"I know." Tim sai through clenched teeth. "I just…. I guess I assumed Dad's training had… I don't know, had _some_ effect on him. He… he doesn't care anymore Dick. He slaughters people… gruesomely, and just…. It's just…."

"Only criminals though, right?" Dick clarified.

Tim gave him an incredulous look. "It hardly matters, Dick. People commit crimes, they don't deserve to be decapitated for it!" Dick looked away, off at the distant lights of downtown Gotham twinkling in the dark landscape. "D-don't tell me y-you _agree…."_

Dick whipped his head around in alarm. "No Timmy! No, not _at all_. Bruce instilled that in me from right off, and no, I would _never_ condone that behavior, but…" He glanced at the city again. "…he's still our brother Tim."

The smaller boy just gaped with wide eyes. "Y-you're…. you're suggesting we _what_ exactly? Invite him for dinner? He tried to kill Bruce, Dick! _That's_ why Dad's down, he got the crap beat out of him by _our brother!"_ Tim cried.

Dick looked deeply troubled by that, but not altogether surprised. "You know, I kinda figured that. Jason comes back and Batman-the-invincible is suddenly out for the count? Who else could do that but another Bat?" He sighed.

Tim balked. "You…? Wait, _what? _You're just… _accepting _this?" He demanded.

Dick paused for a moment, but then shook his head slowly, but uncertainly for it to be a comfort. "I… Tim, you know why I ran that night? You know why I did what I did to the Joker, right?" He asked.

Tim nodded.

"Tell me honestly that if I'd handed you a gun and put Joker in front of you that night what you would have done."

Tim blinked in shock, then gulped.

He knew _exactly_ what he would have done, and it terrified him.

Dick seemed to see his answer in his horrified expression. "It took _everything_ I had not to bring a real gun to meet the Joker that night. It's there, that impulse, in both of us, just like it was with Jason. Only now, Jason's lost whatever he had before to _keep_ him from pulling the trigger, and he has more reason than we ever could to hate that bastard. We have the ability to kill in us, but Bruce doesn't, it would destroy him. I… I can see Jason being angry, being angry at Bruce for _not_ killing the Joker when he should have. I understand why Dad can't kill, but I don't think Jason ever did. Killing just... wasn't that bad in Jason's eyes, like it is in ours. So no, I'm not surprised Jason came after Dad, it's just… something he'd do."

He shrugged, gazing back out at the city.

Tim was in disbelief, not being able to believe what his ears were telling him he'd just heard.

That was the _exact_ reason Jason came after Batman. That was _exactly_ why he was on a killing spree in Gotham right now, _exactly_ the reason he refused to see Bruce or Tim or Barbara or Alfred.

He was angry they did nothing to avenge him.

"But he'll listen to you," Tim realized under his breath.

"What was that?" Dick asked, turning back to him.

Tim cleared his throat. "Jace won't listen to any of us, not just probably, but _definitely_ for that exact reason. We didn't do anything to the Joker… but you did."

Dick looked stricken in worry for a moment, before his features smoothed over into that famous calculating look of his. "Tame the beast?" He said thoughtfully.

"Get him out of Gotham before Batman wakes up and takes it up a notch." Tim agreed.

Dick looked curiously over at him. "You wouldn't mind Jason being Red Hood in some other city?" He asked.

Tim was taken up short, and thought it over for a moment.

He really _did_ care that people were dying… he honestly did NOT need the images seared into his brain from the footage tapes, and it terrified him, the things he'd seen his big brother do. Hell, he'd seen the state Bruce was in, he was terrified just on principle.

But Dick was right, he was _still_ their brother.

And he missed Dick with all his heart, and he didn't miss Jason any less. Even more maybe because until two days ago, there was no chance whatsoever of ever seeing Jason again while he could keep tabs on Jump City through the news.

Jason was aggressive, violent, cruel, merciless… but he'd always been like that, just not quite so… obviously. And yet, he'd always managed to give Tim or Dick a warm smile, to offer a hug when one of them needed it, to be loving and warm for his brothers—when no one else was around.

Tim had to have faith that Jason, _his_ Jason, was still in there.

Of course, it wouldn't ever surface so long as Bruce or a criminal were anywhere near him.

Tim struggled, trying to reconcile his Jason with the man on the surveillance tapes, but it was turning out to be one heck of a battle.

And yet, he understood what Dick said about Jason being angry. He had a right to be angry, and… and now there were about half as much criminals in Gotham as there's been forty eight hours ago… which, violent and bloody as it may be, was _totally_ a bad thing….

Dick was watching this inner battle play out on the younger boy's face carefully, seeming to learn Tim's thought process as he watched.

"I… I don't like the killing but… but he _is_ my brother. I want my brother back." Tim managed to say, and that was true if anything else. He'd be willing to forget everything if Jason—HIS Jason—could be sitting with the two of them right now, just like they used to.

"Ditto." Dick said gently, with a soft, understanding smile. "I'll see what I can do." He agreed, standing up and pulling Tim to his feet as well. "Though, before I go, I'd still like to know what exactly happened… with everything I guess."

Tim took a deep breath. Now that he had a plan of action, he felt better about all of this, and though it was hard reciting some of the more tragic parts, he managed to get out everything they'd learned and seen: Jason coming back, going crazy, his new mantle, all the dead crooks, Batman's fight with him, the Joker…

"Huh, guess I know where I'm going next." Dick sighed heavily.

Tim tilted his head. "What? Am I missing something?"

Dick gave him a strained smile. "Jace kept the Joker alive to confront the Bats about it, but surprisingly (_not) _Batman didn't cave and ended up putting the clown back in Arkam. How do you think Red Hood is going to handle his anger now that Batman is out of commission for a few days?"

Tim blinked.

Oh this was _so_ not good.

"Point taken." He said tensely. "Perhaps you should get going then." He agreed.

Dick nodded. "I... might not be headed back this way." He hedged.

It was Tim's turn to sigh heavily. "I know. Be safe. Tell Jason I want to see him when he can, and… you know I love you both."

Dick's blue eyes twinkled happily despite the gloomy mood around them. "Aw, love you too baby bird." He chuckled, pulling Tim into another hug.

Tim held on as tight as he could.

Too soon the broke apart and Dick ran a hand through Tim's hair again. "You take care too, k? And don't feel like you have to wait until the dead walk again to contact me, alright?" He said softly, and Tim let out a teary laugh and nodded.

"By Dick." He muttered.

"Catch ya around little brother."


	6. Shoot First, and Just Don't Ask

**Hello internet!**

**Sorry, I'm back (hopefully) from the longest most painful case of writers block EVER. You can all thank **_**The Outsiders**_** by S.E. Hinton for that- that book gave me my inspiration spark again. I'm currently working on a fic for that book too, but I don't think I'll post it until it's nearly done. All this "post and then wait a month (or three) to update" thing is utter crap and I hate it when authors do it.**

**Yes, I'm a hypocrite, which is why it irritates me so much. **

**Another note: I sort of fiddle around with the timeline, creating more time in the story line that can actually fit into a year and messing with how long Jason's was dead and what he knows… just for kicks, so, ignore any inconsistencies. Just roll with it, kay? **

**Anyway, enjoy! **

Strangely enough—or perhaps not so strangely depending on how you look at it—the roof of Arkam Asylum was utterly unprotected. Even more convenient still was that the top security holding units were located directly below a skylight dead center of said roof. All one had to do was break through the glass, make a landing, and you were standing in the middle of a hexagonal room, lined with six holding cells. Though Arkam was three floors, the walls of these cells were huge slabs of metal that went from twenty feet below ground to the roof, capped with even more reinforced metal for a seemingly impenetrable really tall box.

Of course, all the cells looked into the center room through half-foot thick glass. Escapable as that glass seemed, once in the main room, the escapee would have nowhere to go, seeing as the door was a three foot thick steel hatch in the floor only opened by a serious of eye scanners, key cards, and electronically entered codes.

Great forethought, _except_ for the stupid skylight.

For an ex-Bat with a grappling hook and more than enough practice with a short drop such as this, it was ridiculous to say the least. Insulting even.

Which is why it surprised Dick to see the shadowy silhouette of his long dead brother simply staring through the skylight down into the prison rather than barging in guns blazing (quite literally now a days it seemed) as he would've at any other point since Dick had known him.

Jason was better than good, but Dick was the original, and managed to sneak up on his little brother, despite all his instincts telling him it was a terrible, suicidal idea.

"You know, you could take a picture, it'd last longer." He quipped lightly, and instinctively ducked away as a barrage of bullets rained down on where he'd been a split second before, their explosions ripping apart the previously peaceful night.

He couldn't say he hadn't expected that.

Once it seemed to sink in who had spoken (not to mention who could get out of the way of a bullet and back into the shadows so fast) the firing stopped, but the guns didn't lower. Dick could only roll his eyes to himself, thinking this is _exactly_ where the phrase "shoot first, ask questions later" came from.

"Dick?" The masked figure said uncertainly, and the original Boy Wonder's heart froze in his chest, before melting into tears he had to fight to keep back.

That was Jason's voice. That was the same voice saying the exact same thing it did when a young boy woke up from the middle of a nightmare to see his big brother standing over him in worry. That was the same voice of the kid he and Bruce had found on the streets so long ago, not the angry, pained one Dick had half expected.

"Talk about shooting first, Jay." Dick choked out softly, barely managing to get over his moment of nostalgia, the bantering front coming back up naturally.

"Tends to be my catch-phrase recently." Jason's voice said, also sounding slightly strained through the natural banter that was the Bat kids' default. Dick swallowed his emotions, coming through the shadows just enough to get a better look, but not far enough that Jason could see him. The younger boy was looking forward, pointing the guns at the place Dick had once stood, but his older brother had moved to be slightly to his left, though ready to dive out of the way if need be. The roof worked in his favor that it made his voice echo, so that if he kept it soft enough, Jason would not be able to pinpoint him by his voice.

"So I've heard." Dick allowed. "Timmy's right terrified you know. He was on surveillance tape duty."

Dick noticed Jason's hands grip the guns just a little tighter.

"What, doesn't like the new me?" He spat acidly, aggression leaking out of every syllable and evident in the way he moved, they way he held himself, in every breath he took.

But all Dick could see was his little brother in pain, and it broke his heart in pity and worry.

"No, he just wants his brother back." Dick said as calmly and evenly as he could, which, coming from him, was really quite calmly.

Jason seemed to be taken off guard by that statement, his posture momentarily shifting into relaxed shock, his guns dropping an inch. Dick fought off the urge to tisk and correct him that he should never let his guard down, no matter who he's fighting.

But he wasn't a Bat any longer, just like Dick wasn't.

Oh, who was he kidding, of course they both were, but Jason would not react kindly to the brothering at that moment, especially not with the Batman reminder.

"He's afraid of me." Jason growled, gripping his guns tighter still.

"Yes, but not so much that he'd think you'd hurt him." Dick said evenly, letting the challenge rest in the air. After all, if he ever _would_ hurt Tim, this conversation would take another route very quickly.

"'Course not." Jason said gruffly, dismissing that in sharp irritation. Dick let out the tension he hadn't known he was holding. This was a good sign— it proved that Jason wasn't totally lost to them yet. "The same does _not_ apply to that bastard you call a dad." He growled menacingly.

Dick rolled his eyes even though Jason couldn't seem him.

"So I've heard." He sighed.

"Don't roll your eyes at me, he had it coming." Jason snapped, and Dick fought off the smile pulling at the corners of his lips. Despite everything, they still knew each other that well.

"Not saying he didn't." Dick said softly, so quietly he wondered if Jason could hear him, but assumed he could when his grip on his weapons relaxed in surprise again.

There was a long silence in which neither of them moved.

"You're not here to stop me." Jason realized in shock, standing up straighter and letting his guns drop even farther.

Dick steeled himself. "No." He admitted tensely.

Jason was quiet.

He suddenly straightened all the way up and holstered the guns again. Dick took that moment to toss his own gun out from the shadows. Jason flinched in defense automatically, but caught the gun on instinct. Despite the Red Helmet over his face, Dick could clearly picture the younger boy's eyes widening in comical shock at the weapon in his hand based on the way he reeled from it in surprise.

Dick walked casually out of the shadows like he hadn't just been shot at and was going to talk face-to-face with the brother that'd been dead for over a year and who'd done the shooting.

"So. What's new with you?" He asked conversationally, bobbing up and down on his heels playfully. Despite being dead, Jason was somehow significantly taller now- which he'd always been, but it seemed more pronounced now, and was still irritating.

Jason just looked up and down between his brother and the gun in his hand.

"This is modified." He said, pointing at the weapon.

Dick pursed his lips. "Yes." He agreed, glancing off to the side of the roof. Really, it was no wonder this place had breakouts so often, they didn't even put so much as a _camera _or something up here. Idiots.

Jason stared at him. Now that they were closer, Dick could see his green eyes staring suspiciously out at him. They wouldn't be Jason's eyes if they didn't look hostile or wary though, so even that aggressive emotion was familiar and welcome.

"You've used this." Jason clarified cautiously.

"Yes." Dick confirmed. "But only ever on one person." He added much softer.

Jason glanced over his shoulder at the skylight, seeming to understand that immediately. "This…"

"Will not kill him if you aim right." Dick said delicately, ignoring the way Jason's head snapped around to him at that. "But if you know anything about me, you know it will do its job well." He allowed, and the tension in Jason's shoulders relaxed just a little.

Jason went back to staring at the gun in what Dick would assume was amazement and that ever-present wariness.

"I won't stop you." Dick shrugged. "But I thought there might be another way … just another option at least." He said as gently as he could, trying to act like he didn't care though they both knew he did. The sheer fact he wasn't going to say it out loud should've been a big enough clue to Jason that Dick really meant it.

Jason chuckled humorlessly under his breath. "You always did love to play peacemaker." He sighed, his aggression momentarily forgotten as he traced his thumb over the black gun-metal. He looked back up at him. "And he knows you used this?" He asked, and Dick needed no clarification to who "he" was.

For the first time, Dick realized Jason might not know the whole story. He might've been a Bat, but he was still dead for quite some time and was probably out of the loop. Besides, Jason was always sort of an 'act first' kind of guy and probably didn't realize there was even research to do or things he might've missed. Not that he'd bother even if he did, too blinded by his anger that Bruce hadn't killed the Joker in vengeance.

"Yes." Dick answered shortly.

Jason picked up on the tension. "And he was ok with it?" he asked incredulously.

"Don't know. We haven't talked since." Dick tried to say it calmly, but it came out too tense, too stressed.

Jason was again shocked. "_What?"_ He blanched.

"Yeah, so don't try and call me Golden Boy again or I might have to actually take offense this time." Dick said in a mock growl, trying uselessly to keep his playful joking manner up, but both of them heard the sad note underneath it.

"Dickie, _what the hell?"_ He half-howled. "You used a gun, and d- uh, Bruce just… and then… _**argh**_, _what the hell!?"_

Dick sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Jay, we need to talk. We really do."

Jason tensed up. "I'm not leaving." He snapped automatically.

"Fine, whatever." Dick waved him off. "Just… do what you need to and find me later. I can't stay in this city any longer than you can." Jason seemed alarmed by that news, and gripped the gun tighter.

"Fine." He snapped, spinning on his heel and facing away as he often did to avoid conflict with his brothers. Dick fought the urge to face-palm and scold him for turning his back to an opponent… even if he was secretly glad his little brother didn't naturally consider him an enemy just yet.

Dick wanted to say so much more.

He wanted to beg him not to kill the Joker for Batman's and Gotham's sake, he wanted to hug him for simply being alive—again—he wanted to slap him upside the head for upsetting Tim, he wanted to understand _exactly_ what was making him act so violently and hatefully, he wanted to plead with him to come home to see Tim and work it all out…

But he knew that was hopeless.

Stupid determination and blind stubbornness was a trait Jason picked up from the Bats just like he and Tim had.

And Jason needed this. Whatever 'this' was, he needed to sort it out before he confronted his brother, before he would listen to the whole story. And he needed to know he had an ally that wouldn't get in his way— that was on _his side_ no matter what—to ever be able to see sense again, and he needed _proof_ Dick was that ally.

And if Dick kept talking, if he said anything else than his already brief insinuation that he didn't want the Joker dead, he would destroy that chance.

So, even though Dick felt like he could've written a book on all he wanted to say right then in that moment, he did nothing.

He turned and slipped into the shadows and was three blocks away before Jason even moved again, praying to whatever deity was listening that his little brother wouldn't be too far gone to give his words a moment's thought.


	7. Magic Bullet

**Hello internet!**

**Cursing warning! (It's from Jason Todd's POV, what'd you expect?)**

**Enjoy! **

Jason probably could've stood there all night contemplating everything he'd just learned and heard, wallowing in the emotions that seemed so foreign in this life after seeing his brother for the first time and realizing said brother wasn't actually against him (very nearly _with_ him at that), pondering the recent and impending events, and considering his options and the magnitude of what the gun in his hand meant. He could've stood there for hours trying to sort it all out, trying to figure out his next move or regret his last moves, trying to organize that barrage of conflicting emotions and information screaming at him, trying to quell the rush of adrenaline that seemed to come for no reason now a days and make him act rashly (well, more than usual), and trying to understand what the hell was going on in this new world he woke up to and in his brain.

He could've, but he decided to brush it all aside for now and break the damn skylight.

He'd catch up with Dick later.

The glass made a pleasant shattering sound that fell like rain with Red Hood in the middle of it. The landing was nothing, as Jason mentally flashed back to the days when Dick spent hours and hours and hours drilling into his brothers how to survive a fall from as high up as a forty story building without a grappling hook. Even in this second life, those lessons were instinct now so that a measly thirty feet didn't even break his stride.

He straightened up and glanced about at the criminals looking surprise/amusement at his arrival. He doubted even they'd heard about his reputation just yet, or that he'd taken Batman out seeing as that only happened twelve hours ago. Rumors took time to infiltrate the layers of Arkam Asylum- where guards were forbidden to talk to residents simply for fear of themselves going insane or swayed/fooled by the insane. Which, if the prison's reputation was anything to go by, was a pretty high possibility.

Hood did a quick scan, though he already knew who was in here this week.

Poison Ivy was in the middle of gently coaxing a potted plant (which really shouldn't have been growing in the lightless cell) to grow some colorful flowers, and was the only one not wary of the intruder. Of course, she used her "womanly wiles" to get her way with men both criminal and hero alike, and simply the concept the new arrival was a guy had her at ease. She smiled a crimson grin at him, fluttering her lashes and the plants around her bristled.

He ignored her.

He'd lost the ability to see the beauty in a woman, oh say, 'bout a year ago. Something about reliving your death and going insane made that less-than-important.

Bane was glaring warningly at him, as if daring him to approach the glass and confront him.

Red was forever annoyed by that guy and almost always took the opportunity to take up that unspoken challenged and try and beat the heck out of the bulky moron, but he had other things on his mind than messing with Bane right then.

The Scarecrow—sans mask and gas so he wasn't terribly frightening right then, simply looking like a giddy young guy watching him with wide, curiously sadistic eyes— hummed at him in a thoughtful way, wondering what he was doing.

Two Face must've been having a bad day, because he didn't even look up from where he was staring transfixed on the wall, absent mindedly flipping a coin on one hand. Jason briefly considered killing that bastard too, remembering sharply what he did to Dick all those years ago, but decided against it. It wasn't in his plans at the moment, and that kill was rightfully Dick's. Perhaps one day, they'd see would see closer to eye-to-eye if they'd bond over that. Maybe one day Dick would understand killing his own torturer could actually be _fun_ if he didn't let those dumb-ass morals he'd caught from Bruce get in the way all the time.

He shelved that one for the moment.

"What do we have here?" Penguin asked curiously, grinning a pointy-tooth grin as he pressed his nose up against the glass at the curiosity before them.

"House call." Red Hood deadpanned, not glancing over to him but staring transfixed at the cell in front of him.

Joker grinned at him.

"Ooooo, are you a doctor?" He laughed sharply. "Come to play house?" He giggled, his blank eyes widening unnaturally. "You couldn't get Batman to kill me, and I'm _sure_ we've met before… did we double at the prom? Oh! I know! You're one of Harley's playthings, right? No, no, wait! You _really are a doctor!"_

"No, I came to kill you." Hood said just as calmly as before. Everyone but Joker leaned back in wariness at that declaration.

"You're gonna have to let him out for that, which I do not recommend. Raving lunatic when allowed any leeway at all." Penguin sniffed, rolling his eyes.

"Shut up, he wants to play and _no one_ wants to play since Harley escaped so _boo you_ party pooper!" Joker hollered at him, never losing his grin. "I get to see this impersonator twice in a night, am I lucky or what?"

"Please kill him…" Bane grunted, banging his head against the glass in frustration. "I can't take anymore…" He groaned.

"If you're serious hun, you should hurry. Batman won't be too happy someone broke in here…" Ivy purred. "By the way… what's your name?" She batted her lashes again, and this time Jason spared her an eye-roll.

"Red Hood." He said shortly. "And Batman's currently in the hospital. You're right about him disagreeing with me."

They stared at him in stunned silence.

"Bull shit." Bane growled, but his apparent disbelief and shock taking away from the aggressive tone.

"That is not possible." Ivy said in a daze. "Batman…"

"Batman trained me. You'd think he'd make sure I didn't surpass him." Hood chuckled coldly, walking casually up to the glass in front of Joker. "It didn't turn out well for him."

"W-wait, h-he…?" Penguin freaked.

Hood pulled a crowbar from where it was strapped on his back and launched it at the glass in front of him. It imbedded deep in the wall, spider webbing it with cracks, but did not break. Everyone could see the deep blood stains and the rust on the faded steel.

"Recognize that?" Hood sneered at the clown who had tilted his head in curiosity at the weapon breaking through his cell.

Suddenly the clown jumped as if he'd been electrocuted and started laughing hysterically until tears started streaming down his white cheeks. He howled and laughed while the other villains stared at him in confusion and wariness (what else is new?) and a slight tremor of fear.

Red Hood was not amused.

"Shut up you sick son of a bitch," He growled, gripping the steel pole and ripping it free from the glass as if it were a knife from butter, and shards of glass fell and shattered to the floor which he paid no heed to.

Joker launched himself up to the glass, pressing his face up against it with wide, happy eyes and a vindictive smile.

"Boy Blunder! It's you! Oh we had such _fun_ last time... though you didn't have quite as much fun that time did you?" He giggled.

"Oh yeah, beating me to death with a crow bar was _such_ fun," Hood growled twirling the crow bar in a business-like manner. "Right up until you killed me, sure it was _fun… _in fact, I'm here to return the favor." He swung the bar and it hit the glass with a thundering _crack_, but still refused to shatter. Hood didn't seem surprised at that, more just getting his frustration out.

"Well, he obviously didn't kill you- you're still here!" Penguin snarked, unable to keep the know-it-all side of himself quiet.

"I was dead for four months until Ra al Guhl brought me back out of pity. He hired you, didn't he?" Hood demanded of the Joker. "Didn't mean for you to kill me you twisted bastard, and I got to get my brain ripped out and rearranged in the afterlife all to come back and finish you…"

Joker tilted his head to the side as all the other villains backed _far_ away from their cell entrances in fear at the news.

This guy had died.

And come back.

To kill the Joker.

AND was a Bat to top it all off, who'd just beaten _BATMAN_- hospitalized him even.

Oh, this was SO bad.

"You were really a Robin?" Ivy breathed, unable to picture the sweet little boy—both the first and second, and now third one—as this full-grown, aggressive, violent villain…/hero?

"Unfortunately." Hood grunted. "Fat lot of good it did me. To the grave and back in the name of one raving madman and my so called father never even considered killing the man responsible. Call it fate, now I get to do it my way." He laughed darkly, upholstering one of his guns and open fired at the glass, which cracked dangerously but still did not break.

Joker still didn't seem afraid, and was still laughing hysterically as he watched the glass persist. It only made Red Hood angrier and angrier.

_Of course_ the psychopath wouldn't fear death- he lived for death and probably never felt any of the pain he ever received thanks to the maddening happy delusions he lived in. He would never stop laughing, never suffer like Jason had. There was no way to get revenge, killing him or not, no way to make him pay with the same pain, because he could never _feel_ it.

Except…

Jason thought himself as a sort of "gun expert" recently, and he recognized the gun Dick gave him was… different, in a way he sort of found familiar. It was like a dream he'd long ago forgotten but came back like an echo when he'd caught the black metal weapon. Just holding it, he could hear the argument Dick had once had with Bruce, years and years ago when they didn't know or care that Jason could hear them, about making a weapon that would make Joker sane. Bruce had forbidden it—calling it as cruel as what Joker himself did—but Jason knew by the glint in Dick's ice blue eyes that he wouldn't forget that notion. It was like the plans for the weapon had already been made and perfected in the genius mind that was Richard Grayson, and simply waiting for a moment to take life in the form of a tangible, gun-metal killer…

Taking revenge once Jason was dead… isn't that what he'd wanted of his father? Dick already had the plans, the idea and the means, and then the anger and the right reason to use it…

He hadn't talked to Bruce since. Bruce would no doubt be angry if he _did_ create this weapon, much less use it. It all made sense.

"You know, my brother didn't try to stop me tonight." He said thoughtfully, more to himself than anything, but the Joker stopped laughing long enough to listen.

"Thought I better off dead too, huh?" Joker agreed in mock sympathy. "And is this the first boy blunder we're talking about? Haven't seen him in ages… do you think he'd want to come play too?"

"No, he doesn't want me to kill you, and yes, he was the first Robin. For some reason he did something to you that force him to leave Gotham…" Red supplied, and Joker tilted his head to the side.

"Riveting stuff, _really_, but shouldn't you be trying to kill me?" He laughed.

"Moron." Bane grumbled under his breath.

"No, that's what I'm saying…" Jason said as patiently as he ever could. "He met me here tonight because he doesn't want me to kill you… and I think I get that you messed up mother fucker could never fear death… so…" Moment of truth: he holstered his own gun and slipped Dick's out from behind his back.

For the first time, Joker stopped dead mid-laugh, still grinning, but staring at the gun perfectly still.

_Thank you gypsy boy._ Jason thought with a surge of pleasure. He wanted Joker _afraid, _and apparently this gun was the only thing that would work. Not even crowbars or death…just this.

And this could be repeated.

Many times in fact.

Oh, thank you, _thank you_ Dickie bird.

"What is that?" Scarecrow demanded as the villains all clambered to see what had the Joker acting so strange.

"No, it can't be…" Ivy gasped, recognizing the weapon. She must have been around the first time, Jason mused… _good, _she could spread the word that Joker wasn't as untouchable as he portrayed. He DID have a weakness…!

"What!? What's going on!?" Penguin screeched in annoyance.

"Something my brother invented, just for this monster." Hood said, the pleased, sadistic edge in his tone clearly evident. "Don't ask me what's in it because I'm no scientist, but it's a sort of magic bullet…" He guessed, and by Ivy's frightened look he realized he was dead on.

"It makes things not funny." Ivy said quietly, and they all stared at the Joker in amazement. Jason dimly noted his suspicions were correct, but it was overshadowed by his glee that this gun would _actually make the Joker stop laughing_!

"Let's see how _happy_ you are to see that crow bar after a round or two in your gut…" Jason said casually aloud, fighting back his sadistic joy. Everyone was completely shocked when the Joker didn't make a sound, his pale white hands actually _trembling_ against the glass now… even if his grin didn't fade just yet.

He was _afraid. _THE Joker was AFRAID. Not of death, but of being serious.

How clever.

Jason started to cackle wildly, and the other villains almost wished for Joker to start laughing gain, just to drown out the insane laugh of the young man before them.

His laugh, not quite as insane as Joker's, but forever more violent, and forever more terrifying.


	8. Better Than Expected

Dick sighed heavily, flicking a pebble off the edge of the roof he was currently resting on out of boredom. There were no signals from Tim, meaning Bruce wouldn't be after him, and the security system wasn't back on in Arkam yet, meaning Jason wasn't quite done yet.

Hopefully, that meant whatever he was doing required taking his time to make sure he didn't kill the clown.

He tried to plan what he wanted to say to Jason once he showed up, but quickly gave up. Planning conversations never worked out, because the second word out of the other perosn's mouth would ruin it. Besides, it was Jason, trying to predict what he'd say or what mood he'd be in was twice as doomed an endeavor.

With a lurch of suspense, Dick's wrist computer gave a little bell-like sound, signaling Arkam's systems were being alerted of a danger. Which meant Jason was probably half way here already.

He counted his breaths, trying to breath normally.

Footsteps made a soft pressing sound across the rooftop, but he didn't turn around and forced himself not to react as a shadow sat down beside him.

"Oh, not doing masks tonight then?" Jason's dry tone came, and Dick heard a click as the red helmet that'd become his signature was undone and rested beside him on the ledge. Dick's own mask was in his pocket. He didn't need it for this meeting, and taking it off had done it's job: he got to see Jason.

His Jason.

Shaggy dark brown hair hanging messily in front of bright green eyes, light freckles across pale cheeks and pale lips, pressed in suspicion into a thin line. Despite the fact he'd been dead, he looked older than the last time Dick had seen him… when he was lying in his coffin.

It wasn't something he'd ever thought he'd get to see.

His jaw line was stronger, and pretty much all traces of childhood roundness or youth were long gone, replaced by a hard edge and sharp features.

"Quite staring at me Goldie, you're making me blush." Jason drawled with sharp sarcasm.

Dick let a wild grin free on his lips, hearing his brother's old banter. "Hard to look away from your butt-ugly mug." He shot right back.

"You're telling me—age does not suit the eternal boy wonder." Jason fake complained, point at his brother's face as if it offended him.

"I haven't been the boy wonder in years, Jay. Though, if we're talking in terms of ages, I guess you could still consider it a decent insult seeing as I'm a Teen Titan now."

"A what?" Jason frowned at him. "Please tell me it's not another Young Justice team—the last one was debilitating enough: like heroes _needed_ another reason to see us as sidekicks." He snarked.

Dick rolled his eyes. "It just so happens to be _my_ team, thank you very much, with no connection to the League at all. In fact," He mused, "It is of common opinion Titan's hate the League… though that might have something to do with the fact that I never let our paths cross, but other than that I have _no idea_ why people would think we hate them." Dick shrugged too innocently as Jason frowned at him.

"You really don't contact the League?" He said as if he still didn't believe what Dick had alluded to earlier.

Dick shrugged, looking distractedly out at the city under them. "Truly." He confirmed. "Honestly, the fact you've seen dad in the past twenty four hours means you've had about ten times as much contact as I have since you died." He grimaced a little, but forced himself to say it.

_Died._

Because yes, Jason _was_ dead. They had to get over that quickly, seeing as he very much _wasn't_ anymore.

"He's not my dad," Jason snarled under his breath, but not to Dick really, more in general. He took that as a good sign that Jason had gotten all his more violent aggression out on the Joker and wasn't up to killing him tonight too. "But I mean, the League's ok with this? They just let you be?" He wondered aloud, sounding even more doubtful.

"Well, they don't exactly _know_ I'm the leader of the Titans-"

"Oh, finally got yourself a leading gig then?" Jason chuckled, which Dick pointedly ignored with an irritated sniff.

"They don't _realize_ I'm the new hero in town." He continued forcefully ignoring Jason's jibe. "Just as I'm sure no one but the Bat realizes you're the new, uh… anti-hero in town, shall we say?"

Jason snorted. "Anti-hero. Way to get all Literature-y on me."

"That's not a word."

"Says _you! _The guy who butchers languages for fun!"

"Touché. Anyway, now I'm Nightwing who is the leader of the Teen Titans in Jump city which is the headquarters for Titans East and other such Titan off-shoots as well as a global network of other honorary Titans, or really just good people who are not adults and decent heroes willing to help. We're a big system but it all works out well, and for some reason the public thinks we hate the League even though it's just me avoiding them in case they were to recognize me and then tell Batman."

"Woah, woah, woah! _Nightwing?_ Seriously? Haven't you had enough of the 'Bird Boy' crap?"

"Really? Of everything I just said, _that's_ what you're hung up about?"

"Well, personally, I was only Robin for a little bit and even_ that_ got me all frustrated about being called Bird Boy. I don't even _want_ to know why you picked yet another _bird_ theme."

"First of all— you have a very short temper, so being called Bird Boy for a _day _ would easily upset you, and secondly—I _was_ the one who chose the name 'Robin' in the first place and I happen to _like_ bird themes, so _screw you." _

Jason bit his lip to keep from laughing and breaking his "_I am too cool for this"_ façade he'd adopted as Red Hood, and Dick couldn't help but grin back like the child he was at heart. It'd been so long since they could talk like this, and it was a gift Dick never thought he'd get again. All they needed now was Tim and it truly would be his dream come true.

Once they calmed down, Jason looked out at the city thoughtfully.

"I guess I'm a bit behind on the times." He noted.

"Just a _bit._" Dick said sarcastically. "Only a couple Apocalypses, and minor revolution in the hero world, but besides that, nothing too bad." He agreed. Jason gave him an exasperated look. Dick knew that look, but he wasn't giving in _that_ easily. "I'll tell you my side of the last year if you tell me yours." He demanded. Jason looked pisssed off again, but grunted, which Dick dutifully took as a 'yes'.

"The second we heard you'd been killed, I was making the gun and had it finished the night after your funeral." Dick began, feeling odd saying things like "_you died"_ and "_your funeral"_ to a very alive person sitting next to him. Janos didn't even bat an eye though, just nodding along like it made sense to what he'd already put together. Dick supposed he probably _was_ used to such terminology by now. "I know you don't care about the specifics, but essentially it's a tranquilizer gun that releases a mix of drugs when fired into something with a pulse. There are some commercial drugs and private use things, but the main one is something I created myself that attacks the part of the brain that makes things funny. I'd already made the drug years ago, so it was just a matter of perfecting the bullets in practice…"

Jason nodded. "I suspected as much." He agreed, remembering that argument long ago. "You talked about it once or twice before and got Bruce pissed at you for it. But I thought scientists didn't know which part of the brain was the funny bone?" He honestly didn't know where he heard that but credited it to one of Dick's 'science lectures' when he geeked out on them.

He figured he was right when Dick gave him an impressed look that he knew that. "No, they don't, but they often assume it's in the frontal lobe because people in motorcycle accidents who crush that part of their skulls when they don't wear helmets often have a change in their sense of humor if they recover. I guessed."

"You _guessed_ which part to set your freakish drug on?" Jason exclaimed, exasperated. It was such a _Dick_ thing to do. "And here I thought you were a genius." He scoffed.

Dick rolled his eyes. "It was an _educated guess, _but a guess none the less. And it _worked_ didn't it?" He demanded, and Jason just grumbled good-naturedly, ignoring him. "_Anyway…_ I took that new weapon and, uh… sort of orchestrated a mass break out in Arkam to release the Joker again and sort of caused a car crash or two in order to herd him where I wanted him." He finished quickly, with a slightly guilty shrug.

Jason stared at him.

"Close your mouth, you'll catch flies that way." Dick smirked, and Jason shook off his shock and closed his jaw with a snap.

"_What the hell, Dickie?!"_ He sighed.

"I _told_ you I had to leave Gotham quickly after that. I'm sure I'm not the _Golden Boy _anymore after that, as you like to tease me that I am. I ran away to Jump and covered up who I was with the Nightwing mantle because, while I'm not on _as bad_ of terms as you now are with him, I'm certainly not on _good_ terms either. Bruce was **SO**_ not happy_, though you'll have to ask Timmy about that seeing as I wasn't here for the aftermath."

Jason frowned, sensing there was more to it, and gave Dick a curious look.

Dick sighed sadly, the explained, "I cornered the Joker and pumped him with bullets to make sure he wouldn't be laughing for a bit and then turned tail and ran. It was a full half hour since the breakout and I was sure Bats would be there at any moment… but I later figured out Tim ran a mock program to make it seem like nothing was wrong and give me a head start."

Jason gaped again.

"That kid is my new hero." Jason muttered under his breath. "Bet Bruce was _pissed…_"

Dick nodded, not bothering to point out that he'd slipped and called their dad Bruce instead of another derogatory term.

"He is still young but… but I think if he'd been able, if he'd been _ready_… I think he might've did the same thing." Dick mused.

"What do you mean?" Jason frowned.

Dick shrugged. "Well… _I_ went against Bruce to go after the Joker because I already had one foot out the door and _not_ doing anything was almost as bad as losing you in the first place," He sighed. "Bruce and I have always had our differences, but they were workable and when you spend that much time with someone, you're _bound_ to disagree, and in the end our conflict made us stronger… but this one was too far. I couldn't consolidate doing _nothing._ Not killing even, but doing _nothing…?"_

Jason could only stare in wordless agreement. He didn't know what to do, whatever was going on in his chest was sure as hell foreign as it was unwelcome.

He supposed you could call it being _touched. _

What Dick was saying was all he ever wanted Bruce to think too but…. Well, at least he had his brother on his side at the very least. It was so much more than he'd been expecting, and it was… actually, really wonderful.

He kept the emotions off his face, and if Dick noticed he said nothing, probably too caught up in his little rant.

"My _point_ is that I was already moving in the direction of leaving. I didn't have YJ anymore, and that really was the last place I was ever Robin seeing as you were Robin in Gotham by then, and had been for over two years, and even when you were gone I wasn't about to step back into it. I'd outgrown it and it was Tim's time… terrible as that progression was. Tim must've cried for three days straight over your cape, to the point I was almost fairly certain he wouldn't do it but… you know him." Dick sighed heavily, his eyes full of the pain of remembering.

"Right little soldier he is." Jason agreed softly, fully seeing Bruce requesting he take up the mantle and Tim being nothing but responsible and determined to do them proud. It was just so _Tim._

Despite what he'd said to Bruce, he didn't really blame Tim for taking up the cape. He didn't see his little brother as his 'replacement', though he'd blame Bruce in a second for making it seem that way. When in costume, Batman would be as stoic as ever and treat Robin the same as if the person behind the mask had never changed. He did the same thing to Jason once he replaced Dick, and he had always expected it for when it was Tim's turn.

"Yeah, he is." Dick agreed with a heavy voice. "But… the message I'm trying to get across is that I was already moving out: I had the training and the wits to get by out there alone, but Tim didn't. He hadn't been Robin yet, he hadn't had the same real-world training yet of dealing with villains and heroes face-to-face, and I already had the plan in place… but, if Tim _were_ ready to go out, if he _had_ the option of fleeing Gotham…"

"He would have been the one with a gun." Jason concluded.

"In a heartbeat." Dick nodded vehemently. "And… he _is_ a soldier, _not_ a scientist like I tend to be, so it probably wouldn't have been a modified gun either."

Jason blinked, trying to absorb that.

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. His _brothers_ were… were actually almost… almost _with _him. BOTH brothers. This was unbelievable.

They sat in silence for a moment while Jason tried to wrap his head around this, and Dick decided to shelf this conversation for a bit and finish his story.

"Before I left, Tim said Beast Boy had quit the Doom Patrol and was a free agent now, so once I left Gotham I headed in that direction and ended up in Jump City. There I ran into not only BB but three other teen heroes and we formed a team of our own. We built a tower and a reputation after a bit, and things sort of went from there. We run into other young heroes from time to time that are all good people and reliable heroes so we make them honorary Titans to call if they need help, or to be called if _we_ need help. It's sort of like the League set-up, except there are no requirements to get in other than that we know and trust them to count on, and there's this unspoken rule they have to be on the young side—so they're not the _big_ iconic heroes or anything, the 'just starting out' kind of heroes." He explained.

"And now there are more than one team?" Jason prompted, actually looking interested, much to Dick's amusement.

"Well, yeah, the Titans earned a big enough reputation to actually have some weight behind it, and there were so many honorary Titans that wanted to be heroes full-time like we were that we helped them form their own teams as Titan off-shoots. Titan's East was the first, and then Titans West, South, and North followed quickly, and now there's a lot of pressure to form another one though since we used the directions as names, I have _no clue_ what we're going to name the next one…" he mused.

"And you get final say in this then?" Jason accused.

"_Actually_, yes. To have credibility they need to have the Titan name behind them, and to get the Titan credibility they actually need to _work_ as a team. Titan's East just sort of happened before were figured out what we were doing, but we had_ a lot_ of say in who went into the other three. The people had to fit together both as friends and as an effective team with all the aspects like a techie and a big muscle factor and all that jazz. _I_ personally remember how difficult it was to figure out how to work in Young Justice after working in a partnership for so long, and I figured if the people going into a team initially were just compatible off the bat and were already decent heroes, they'd skip that awkward stage and just go right to being an awesome team."

"Oh that's right, I forgot, you're a freak who likes to analyze these things until you can just pick and choose people like puzzle pieces off the top of your head, right?" Jason rolled his eyes. "For someone so normal looking, you _really are _a great big geek on the inside, aren't you?" He teased.

"Guilty." Dick sniffed in mock seriousness, and Jason rolled his eyes.

"And you're the one in charge, the _leader_ of all this?" Jason marveled.

"I guess. Officially yes, but it is truly a casual set-up in every way the League _isn't._ There are no _membership cards_, only a communicator given out if they want to call for help, or respond to a cry for help if they can. When I found the original team, they were all brand new heroes who had no clue what they were doing, with the exception of Beast Boy, but he was so young and had spent his entire hero career following orders to the tee that he wasn't much better off except he could fight and use his abilities well. I, by far, had the most experience and actually knew what I was doing on top of knowing what needed to be done so… it just sort of worked out like that. They made it official so there were no issues, but really it _is_ a team effort and there're no _mentors_ to report to or get in trouble with. It's just us as we do it." He shrugged.

"And you do it full time? With a base and everything?"

"Yep." He nodded happily, popping the 'p'. "With a giant tower shaped like a 'T' on an island in plain view for all the city. The complete opposite in visibility of the Batcave."

"I'll say." Jason muttered sarcastically. Of course it would be _Dick_ who'd go for the showy part. He _loved_ attention both in and out of costume, as a side effect of spending the first seven years of his life near-perpetually under a giant spotlight in the middle of the air. "Where'd you get the cash for that? Not _quite_ as cut off from dad as you let on?" Jason half-teased, half accused.

Dick gave him an affronted look, but he could see the flicker of humor in his sapphire eyes. "_Why_ do people think I can't fend for myself? I _am_ a child prodigy and boy genius as you're so kind as to tease me about every five minutes!" He complained and Jason snickered. "So far as the public knows, Richard Grayson is being a part-time playboy on a global scale (like father like son, after all), and part-time stock-broker on Wall Street, who only works for the most private customers and _never_ picks a bad investment."

Jason nodded, impressed. "And how'd you pull that off?" He smirked. "Being a playboy I mean, when you don't leave Jump?"

Dick cackled evilly. "I have my ways." He assured him, his wild grin telling Jason there was probably a lot of computer hacking and super-tech trickery going on to bring that story to life. "Honestly, the stock market isn't hard at all when you've got a brain wired to think that way, the hacking abilities to know what's going to happen in the world before it happens, and the deductive skills to know which stocks are best with that information. Sure, I take a customer every now and then just to keep the front alive and my reputation out there, but it's mostly to fund the Titans. I can't _tell you_ how many times our tower's gotten destroy- it's ridiculous! On top of the other teams now and every time _their_ towers get trash…" He shook his head in mock- frustration, and Jason laughed.

"Only you." He scoffed.

And it was true: only Dick could pull this off. Running a global network of underage heroes, keeping it under control along with all the villains those heroes undoubtedly stir up, pretending to be a playboy/stock broker without ever leaving his city, _and_ finding the time to hack the absurd amounts necessary to pull it all off? _On top_ of being a full-time hero and leader of a team himself. All under the League's nose without any of the other heroes or villains who know him so well suspecting a thing.

He must never sleep, Jason decided. Stupid Bat insomnia was something Jason had always found eternally annoying and yet grudgingly helpful. Dick just took it to the most ridiculous level though—_never_ sleeping and yet _always_ seeming bright and annoyingly chipper at all hours of the day.

"Yes, I'm amazing." Dick agreed, and ducked the shove Jason tried to throw his way. "So, that's that." He finished in a business-like way. "The Titans are going strong now, and I was _just about_ to get into another mission for a string of robberies going on when Tim sent me a message and took a little detour here. Your turn." He prompted, then rested his chin on his hand and looked at Jason expectantly.

Jason growled at him, but didn't protest.

"You already know most of it. I _know_ Tim's told you pretty much everything by now." He pointed out.

"What? That Ra al Ghul dug up your corpse and put it in his freak pit to bring you back to life and that you returned to Gotham to go on a killing spree of criminals, beat up the Bat, and kill the Joker? Yes, I got all that—but I also know you weren't dead for that entire year, and I'm curious." Big blue eyes looked imploringly at him, and Jason looked out at the city to avoid the innocent curiosity.

As an older teenager quickly approaching being an adult, how the _hell_ did Dick still manage to portray the cute little eight-year-old gypsy that got adopted by Bruce Wayne? Jason didn't even _know_ him back then, and still, he didn't need an overactive imagination to be able to picture it precisely. It was like he was unable to grow up… or perhaps he already had.

He was a child genius in the truest sense, so he was obviously smarter than most adults when he was still a toddler. He was a child, with the mind of a super-advanced adult. Perhaps as his mind raced ahead, he held fast to his childlike innocence because that was who he was. He was a child, and he was smart. Physical age had nothing to do with it, until the point where no matter _what_ age he was, he would always be a smart child—he would always be Dick, _this_ Dick, this childlike super genius. While some kids could still mature and change who they are as they grow, Dick was who he was when he was still small, and that wasn't going to change, age be damned.

Sure, Jason had seen his older brother be every much the serious adult he needed to be, but he had no doubt Dick was capable of that persona when he was _four,_ and not just because he'd "grown up" any. _This_ was Dick, and that wasn't going to change.

Somehow that was comforting: Dick would never go back on his word because he would never switch his thinking as he got more mature and saw things differently. Everything he did and said were after more thought and consideration than Jason was sure he himself was even capable of, with every contingency plan made and fault with his logic thought out and dealt with before he could even speak a word in his defense. When Dick said something, he meant it.

But, knowing all this only made it harder for Jason to put a voice to the past year. For one, the childlike way Dick took to things made him slightly nervous to speak about the… horrors, he supposed he should call it, though he knew full well Dick had seen and experience equal to and worse troubles in the past, _and_ that he was _older_ than him. Despite that, the kid-like look in his big blue eyes made him nervous, like he didn't want to _corrupt_ him or anything, though his brain knew full well that was utter crap. Dick was more grown up that he'd ever be, but he just didn't _act_ like it and therefore… he hesitated. Stupid as it was.

Secondly, knowing what he did about Dick's decision making process and the way he thought… _if, _he didn't like what he heard, _if_ he didn't approve of Jason's new life, _if_ he didn't condone it and wanted him to stop… well, Jason would lose a brother.

Because Dick wouldn't ever change his mind about it, he'd never come around to see it his way as he _grew up_ and realized life sucked and suddenly agreed with Jason's approach, because Dick already knew full well how badly life sucks and yet still managed to be the happy-go-lucky one despite it. Dick would never come around, and HE himself sure as hell wasn't about to feel _guilty_ and stop murdering the bastard filth that deserved to die, and therefore their relationship would crumble.

This, here, this talking and brotherly thing they'd been enjoying for the past fifteen minutes would end, and it would end for good.

So he hesitated.

But he wouldn't be Jason Todd if he wasn't bullheaded and fearless, so he heaved a sigh and spat it out.

"Joker beat me to death with a crowbar and then blew up the building I was in. Bats didn't save me in time and I was buried in an unmarked grave outside of Gotham, completely dead with the whole mortician make-over and fancy coffin thing for a full four months until Ra al Ghul sent his cronies to dig me up and get me back to his place. I took a swim in the Lazarus Pit and suddenly woke up in what felt like a lake of acid."

He grit his teeth, the memory forcing him to swallow before he could continue talking.

"Do you remember…?" Dick prompted gently, and Jason didn't need any further hints to know what he was talking about.

"No." He growled. "From my point of view it was just the pain of the crowbar to the pain of the bomb to the pain of the acid magic water." He clenched his fists and glared at them. Dick shot him a sympathetic look, but done in a way that only a fellow Bat could. It was sympathy, but with a streak of acknowledgement that they wouldn't try to understand, because no one could ever understand. It wasn't pity, but a silent agreement that you had suffered, and they were sorry for that without wasting their breath on trying to relate or wasting energy trying to make you feel better, because they couldn't. Somehow that made it better than flat out comfort that often just belittled your pain. It made you feel like you were stronger because of it.

Jason sighed in defeat. "I do have dreams though… when they're not the typical nightmares that seem to be requirements before becoming a Bat, or about the pain and… well, just pain, there are some that are… nice almost, I guess."

"Nice how?" Dick wondered curiously.

Jason let a corner of his lips turn up just that little bit.

"Nice as in… peaceful kinda. Just… I couldn't ever explain it, but I can separate them clearly in my head. The pain, those are memories of the things I've lived through… but the nice is things I… I haven't."

He let in hang there, and he knew Dick must be wondering the same things he was. He hoped… despite himself he hoped. Life _did_ suck, but after… perhaps that didn't. He could be cynical, mistrustful, and violent here all he wanted but… he could be hopeful that it wouldn't always be like this. Perhaps there _was_ an end. A happily ever after, corny as that sounded.

"I can't explain _what_ the nice things are exactly, but…"

"They're nice." Dick concluded, and Jason nodded absently.

"Yeah… they are. They really are." He sighed again. If only the nice dreams would happen more often. He was so calm when he thought of the nice things, but then he started thinking about the Joker, and Bruce, and criminals, and…

Then he got _pissed, _and he forgot to think about the nice things. Most of the time he forgot the nice things even existed, they so easily slipped his mind, like a mirage he couldn't ever look straight at. He was blinded by the inexplicable rage and furious pain, the never ending torment his life seemed to be, and the nice things slipped away.

He forgot where he heard it, but he supposed it might've been Dick again. It was an old saying, '_The good things don't come close to balancing the bad, but they do make the bad just that much more bearable'. _

He'd experienced so much _bad_ in the past year it was a miracle he hadn't just taken one of his guns and blown his own brains out rather than put up with it all. Death wasn't so bad the first time around, at least, it wasn't compared to what living in this second life was.

"Jason…" Dick's soft voice called him back from his thoughts and he blinked them away.

He shook it off and thought back, trying not the glare or grimace when he thought of it. "Basically… I came back, but I came back a bit screwed up. I couldn't think straight and it felt like someone had pulled out my brain, put it in a blender, then shoved it back through my ears. I don't remember the first couple months except that it hurt… _a lot._ I went back once I'd collected myself and found out I'd run away, jumped out a window into the ravine a mile beneath al Ghul's palace which probably should've killed me if I hadn't still been wet from the pit."

He spoke in a dull voice, and tried to ignore how white Dick had gotten. He knew he was just worried, but it still bugged him to see his older brother so freaked. _He_ was the one to live it after all.

"I figured I ran around the wilderness and just… lost it." He shuddered involuntary. Most of his nightmares stemmed from the insanity that followed him. "When I finally regained some sense… well, it'd been a long time. I found the nearest city and figured out my way. Living on the streets wasn't hard, I'd done it all my life before Br-uh, Bats and you found me. I just… didn't bother with pretending I was a hero anymore, I just didn't care. I was too tired. I robbed dozens of stores and several banks to get the gadgets and connections I needed. I got a new mantle and toyed around Europe, and finally got around to realizing what I was so angry about all the time and then made up a game plan. Mainly as you already said: kill criminals, get the Joker, find Batman. I got better with guns until I felt I was decent enough to use them out on the streets, then came back to Gotham and started cleaning up the drug trade. Full circle."

Dick remained silent for a long time.

Jason jumped a bit as he was suddenly trapped in a big hug from his older brother, and though he probably could escape if he felt like pushing the shorter boy off the building, he felt that would be a bit harsh, even for him.

Besides… he'd never admit it aloud… but he kind of missed Dick's hugs.

A little.

Barely at all.

… but he still didn't push him away, and closed his eyes, memorizing the comforting, familiar feel of Dick silently saying he loved him.

The older boy pulled away and looked out at the city without saying a thing, something Jason found he suddenly greatly appreciated. Words would only mess it up, and he was fairly sure there was nothing even _Dick_ could say that would make it better or less horrible at all.

The silence was enough. It was an acknowledgement that Jason had suffered, and that his older brother was there for him if he asked… but he wouldn't suffocate him with the worry he was undoubtedly feeling now.

It was… just what he needed to hear.

Nothing.

Yes, that was good.

It was even better that he wasn't commenting on the theft or the guns or the murder either.

"The Pit usual doesn't mess with people's head though, does it?" Dick suddenly wondered aloud. Jason found this distancing, this scientific way Dick took to things oddly comforting. It was just so _him_ to do that, and he himself had said earlier that he was often more like a scientist than anything, especially when he was curious. It helped to imagine Dick overanalyzing things and lost in thought about some technical thing that fascinated him, just like he always used to do, rather than associate Jason's own memories with the subject.

"No, I don't think so. But it's never been used to bring someone back to life before, not to mention the fact they were probably well on their way to decomposition by then." Jason pointed out, and neither of them felt like mentioning how Jason was talking in third person about it.

"No… I suppose there would have been… other things happening there that couldn't have gone over well." Dick aloud, obviously deep in thought about it and trying not to talk out loud so as not to set Jason off. He wanted to roll his eyes at his big brother's babying, but at the same time was grateful he was keeping it quiet. He really didn't want to hear it.

"Perhaps it was just me reacting badly to the pain rather than some mystic crap going on." Jason huffed. "Maybe losing my mind was all my doing rather than the Pit's." He shrugged, glaring out at the city. He felt Dick's eyes on him, but pointedly ignored it.

"Is the Joker dead?" Dick blurted out. Jason whipped his head around in surprise and the blunt and rapid subject change.

"No." He said shortly. They left it at that and fell into silence for a moment.

"Are there any plans on him _being_ dead in the future?" Dick hedged.

Jason raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you planning on taking this gun back?" He challenged, pulling out the one Dick had modified out and brandishing it demandingly.

"No." Dick said truthfully.

"Then… no." Jason responded evenly, and they fell silent again.

"I was thinking about updating the bullets you know. Streamlining the drug, trying new things…" Dick mused aloud. Always the scientist, Jason thought with an internal eye roll.

"Feel free." He replied shortly.

More silence.

"Have you ever heard of Bludhaven?" Dick said suddenly again, and Jason glanced up at him.

"Nope. Am I supposed to have?"

Dick shrugged. "You said to Bruce—and by proxy Tim and by proxy _me— _that your methods are what Gotham needs, and whether I agree with that— or if you'd even listen to me if I didn't—or you actually _are_ right for the city really doesn't matter right now. Not with Bruce already firmly implanted here with this city as his territory. You know how he gets."

"Interesting start." Jason said warily.

Dick rolled his eyes. "You know how Gotham is called a city without hope?"

"Uh… I guess I've heard that someplace." He allowed, still cautious. In fact, Gotham was referred to as a city without hope by pretty much everyone who _didn't_ live in Gotham, and the people who did live here were too afraid to say anything like that, though it could be assumed they believed that more than anyone.

"People who live in Bludhaven vacation in Gotham." Dick said, looking Jason square in the eye and his blue irises seemed to be speaking louder than his words.

It clicked a second later.

"Huh… guess I could, uh, check it out or something." He nodded, glancing back out at the skyline.

"And I could, you know, stay very, _very_ far away from there." Dick said cheerfully.

Now it was Jason's turn to roll his eyes. "You sound like you're trying to get rid of me."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Shut up midget."

Dick looked affronted. "_So_ you've been taller than me since we were kids, _congratulations_ you don't have to _point it out_ every five seconds!" He complained, and they both fought smirks.

"Eh, makes me feel better." Jason grinned evilly, getting up and standing on the edge of the building.

In all honesty, this was a welcome development. Pretty much the only one of the night actually. After beating that sadistic clown to a pulp, Jason didn't really know what direction this new life was supposed to take.

Yell at Bruce? Check.

Beat the clown? Check.

Reunite with his brother? Not on the plans, but altogether a welcome turn of events so, check.

He had no direction now, and this new city sounded rather appealing. He could _really_ set up shop and figure out his territory and possible cure a city of crime and beat out his frustrations with his pain in one go. Two birds, one stone.

But… he didn't want this to be goodbye forever.

"Dick…" Dick pausing in his bouncing at getting ready to take off.

"Yeah?"

Jason clenched his jaw. Again with the stubbornness, he spit it out.

"I'm not asking your permission or approval but… you don't _mind_ my methods?" He demanded, looking his square in his searing blue eyes.

Dick was silent for a moment, and Jason could just _hear_ the gears turning in his head. He was doing the '_overanalyze'_ thing again, and Jason knew whatever he said now was his official position in it: it wouldn't change.

Finally, he let out a tired breath. "I think… I think Tim put it nicely earlier: I don't like the killing, but you _are_ my brother. I don't think_ I_ could kill like that, nor would I hesitate in stopping any other person who tried to do what you're doing, but… it's _you._ As clearly biased as it is, that's the way I see it. Tim and I, both of us, we're with you because you're our brother and you're supposed to count on family before anything else. We don't like it, but we will always be on your side the best we can." He let out a big sigh as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Jason couldn't help but agree completely.

"…thanks." He said quietly, but as sincere as he could, which was totally unlike him. Dick just nodded, not even giving a teasing smile at the break of character, but acknowledging the weight of what he just said.

Because Dick honestly stood with him, and it was all Jason wanted, and he was earnestly grateful for it. He knew this decision would not be easy for Dick or Tim, and would force them to play peacemaker between Jason and the hero world—force them to take sides they didn't want to take, in a battle where they agreed full-heartedly with _both_ sides. Siding with him wouldn't effect Jason in any way, except make his life ten times better, but it would undoubtedly hurt _them_ greatly.

And they were doing it anyway.

For the first time in over a year, Jason felt a surge of emotion that _wasn't_ altogether tinged or tainted with anger or pain.

He wasn't a poet, but _love_ would probably cover it pretty well.

He forgot being a hard ass for a minute and pulled Dick into a proper hug, which he was obviously shocked about for a moment before hugging him back happily.

In order to preserve one ounce of normality in his life, Jason let go quickly and pretended like he hadn't just done that… but not before secretly memorizing the sense of comfort it gave him first.

When the pain was bad, at least he'd have that to remember. One good thing to think about in _this_ life, a tangible memory he could remember from _this_ world to make it a little less horrible.

"Don't let this fool you- I _will_ kick your ass if you start killing in Jump or some other hero's city, nor will I stop Tim or Bruce or a Titan from doing the same, got it?" Dick broke him out of his thoughts.

Jason grinned at him. "Sure, sure, whatever you say Goldie."

"No, I'm_ serious_ Jay_!" _Dick warned, though his blue eyes twinkled at seeing Jason so lively and happy.

"Oh, I believe you…" Jason said with a grin, already planning ways to toe the line to its absolute max _without_ Dick _actually_ killing him for a second time. "And what, you wouldn't let a Leaguer kick my ass?" He complained.

"Probably not because _they'd_ actually kill you or send you to some max security prison forever and ever!" Dick huffed. "All I'm saying is that you can do what you see is right, but just stay out of the way of the people who will actually try and stop you. The Bats will keep a distance out of… respect I guess, family ties and whatnot, but not if you get too close to home, and others definitely won't if they get a good reason to stop you, so stay off their radar, got it? No killing heroes either! _Only_ the guilty please?"

Jason just grinned knowingly, but in that patronizing way he knew annoyed his big brother. It was all fine, he planned on doing all of that anyway, he may have been violent and completely rouge, but he wasn't _stupid_, nor suicidal despite what one might assume.

"Yes, _mother!"_ He scoffed, chuckling as he slipped his helmet back on.

"Oh! And stop by to see Tim some time. It's all nice and well I got to see you, but he's still freaking out." Dick said.

"Sure, sure." He agreed, though he wondered how on earth he was supposed to separate Robin from Batman _in_ Gotham. That just didn't work very well… though maybe if he went in as Jason Todd? People _did_ think he'd just run away, and Bruce couldn't _attack_ him in public like that without blowing cover… but that would alert the hero world he was alive as well, which he wasn't too fond of either.

"Oh, and one more thing," Dick brought him out of his planning.

"_Seriously?_ You really _are_ my mother, aren't you?" Jason snapped sarcastically.

Dick just rolled his eyes and slipped something into his hands. Jason saw it was a little round communicator with a big white 'T' on it. "It's as secure as humanly possible, and since I designed/built it, you already know how to disable the tracking unit if you don't want it, but know only the Titan database a mile under the main tower has access to it for emergencies."

Jason looked at the device and wordlessly slipped in into one of the many pockets of his army cargo pants.

"You weren't exaggerating, you _really don't_ have any standards for being a Titan, do you?" He scoffed with a smile, though Dick couldn't see it.

"That's the only way you'd ever be on a team, Jay." He chuckled, clapping him on the shoulder and moving past him towards the other side of the roof, slipping his mask on.

"Catch ya later, Bird Boy." Jason smirked.

"Death breath." Dick nodded in mock seriousness, then slipped into the shadows with that eerie cackle of his before Jason could decide to shoot him for the new nickname.

"Not funny D!" He yelled into the darkness, only half sure Dick was still close enough to hear. "Not funny at all…" He muttered to himself, but couldn't help the honest smile creeping over his lips as he turned and vanished into the shadows.


	9. The Pawn's Check Mate

The Teen Titans didn't need Raven's ability of sensing others emotions to know Nightwing returned to the tower after a two day absence to see an old friend marginally happier than he'd left.

He hadn't exactly been a _depressed _person so to speak, he was always chipper and happy and goofing off with Cyborg and Beast Boy on top of his serious hero side, but he came back just that much changed. He smiled just a little more often, and those smiles conveyed just a little more warmth. His laugh took a lighthearted feel to it, and he laughed more easily as some jokes he might not have found funny before. He was the same person, he hadn't changed in _that_ respect, but he was just… a little lighter.

No one noticed it more than Raven, who DID have the ability to sense emotions and clearly recognized the serious—no, _majorly overwhelming—_jump in his mood. He was suddenly brimming with excitement before missions and honestly entertained and amused by Starfire's bad cooking and the stupid/dorky things Beast Boy did. He wasn't so aggressively irritated and personally insulted when a villain got away. He'd look to the window and feel a rush of satisfaction as he looked out at the city, instead of worry and preoccupation like he used to. But most importantly of all, when hedging around questions alluding to his past or his personal life, he avoided them with a _playful_ air about him, instead of a defensive aggression and a '_no room for arguments'_ tone in his voice. It was like he was just counting the days now until they figured him out and was _ok_ with that, instead of avoiding it at all cost and feeling a stab of mourning and pain when the subject came up.

Amazing? Yes.

Suspicious? Completely.

Nightwing himself was enjoying this new life he found himself in quite nicely, and easily ignored Raven's frowns and curious/suspicious looks every time he felt a bit happier than he normally would have under the same circumstances. Life was by no means easy, and he still suffered stress from a massive work load, mission failures, Bat insomnia, villains and current ongoing missions, Slade (who deserved his own category of stress apart from other villains), roommate troubles, and an underlying general stress/alertness that never seemed to go away no matter how peaceful the moment, and which Nightwing had mentally started calling_ Bat paranoia. _

He still had stress and troubles and things to overcome on a daily basis that never seemed to go away, but it was with the overarching idea that he was doing good. He was confident in everything he did that he did it because he was doing what he was supposed to be doing, not just because he was hiding from Batman and dealing with Jason's death. This was his life now, and it was something he actually wanted to work at for his future, not just as a mean to forget the past.

Jason wasn't dead anymore, he kept in better contact with both his brothers, and he'd deduced through that increased contact (through Tim mostly) that Bruce was giving him just as wide a berth as he was giving to him, and therefore didn't have to stress so much that Batman was going to hunt him down and drag him back to Gotham randomly one night.

It was all working out nicely.

This life was far from perfect, with half his family disconnected from him (ok, most of it except two seeing as he viewed the League, and even some of the villains he'd grown up fighting and therefore also had a part in raising him—kinda, sorta, hard to explain relationships—were all out of contact seemingly permanently). But still, he had two brothers, which was two more people from his past than he'd had before, and that was just fantastic.

But the main thing was that Dick had come to this city _because_ of Jason's death. He'd avoided talking about his past _because _of Jason's death. He'd avoided and closed off from everything _because_ of Jason's death…!

And now, miraculously, Jason wasn't dead anymore.

That doesn't mean it still didn't happen, but the effects on Dick's life were suddenly not so vice-like as they were before. Things had an opportunity to heal, and get better. It was actually a conversation with Jason that opened his eyes to the new life he might consider taking:

"_You're telling me the Titans don't even know who you are? Or, uh, were? Not even your team?"_

"_Uh, not really." Dick admitted offhandedly, hacking into stock files as he talked into his earpiece one late night when both Bat children knew neither of them would be sleeping. _

"_Well, you really are Bruce's clone, aren't you?" Jason spat sarcastically into the com. _

"_What's that supposed to mean!?" _

"_Lemme guess, you told them it's "__**safer"**_ _for them not to know about your past, right?" Jason snapped. _

_Dick blinked, shocked he knew that. Then again, he probably shouldn't be so surprised. Jason and Tim had a tendency to know things about him that even he didn't realize he had a habit of doing, and vice versa. _

"_I thought so." He said smugly. "Well let me tell you, __**Golden Boy**__, that the Bat does the same thing. 'It's too emotionally difficult to talk about, therefore I'm gonna claim it's a security risk and that I have a noble reason for lying and leaving you out of it' right? That's SO Bruce's M.O. and don't try to deny it." _

_Dick scoffed. "Says the guy who claims to not have emotions!" He accused right back._

"_OI! I'm NOT like him, thankyouverymuch! When__** I**__ find it too emotionally difficult to talk about, I tell them to f*** off, I don't LIE and say 'oh, I'm doing it to protect you!'" He mocked bitingly. "Insult their intelligence much? They're vigilantes just like us you know, and if they can't handle the f***ing truth, then they shouldn't be heroes at all, and if you can't trust them with— not you're real identity even, but a FORMER mantle— then they shouldn't be your teammates at all—'nuff said. You're only being a wimp about it at this point." He said bluntly. _

"_When did this turn into a therapy session?" Dick complained under his breath, going back to the files. "And, I HAVE been hiding it from them for over a year now, how am I supposed to just bring it up? 'Oh hey guys, before we have lunch, I'd just like to tell you I was actually the original Robin and have been lying/hiding who I was for the past year even though I'm supposedly one of your best friends and teammate who you've all trusted you life to on a daily basis… so, who's up for pizza?'… uh-huh, that'd go over well."_

"_You CAN'T do that?"_

"_And by '__**well**_**'**_, I mean incredibly horribly awfully __**terrible**__. 'Train wreck with nuclear waste next to a preschool' level bad."_

"_Wow. Overreact much?"_

"_Possibly, but that's not the point. How the hell am I supposed to just bring it up after all this time? Wouldn't it be random and a worse shock after waiting a year?"_

"_Well, if you're really telling them the truth then the story will explain itself for you now won't it?" Dick could practically hear Jason rolling his eyes. "It would explain the timing and why you didn't tell them: easy enough."_

"_Says __**you."**_

"_Seriously, if you ARE their teammate who they've trusted their lives to on a daily basis as you say, they'll get it. It's not like you're not still YOU, just, now they'll know a little more than strictly necessary. Get off your high horse, forget the 'noble' act, and just freakin __**tell them **__already."_

"_Yeah, I'll get right on that." Dick huffed. _

"_You're just patronizing me, aren't you?"_

"_What am I? Your wife?"_

"_No, and thank GOD for that! Neither of us know how to cook." _

"_Shut up. You're one weird bastard, you know that?" _

"_Aw, but you love me." _

"_I'm seriously debating it right now." _

"_I'm hurt Goldie, truly hurt, ya know?"_

"_You'll live." _

"_You sure about that?"_

"_Yes, positive." _

"_Well, Smarty Pants knows best… but you are telling them right?"_

"_Ok, that's it, I'm hanging up now." _

"_Wimp." _

"_I'm not taking advice from a psychopath!" _

"_Still a wimp."_

"_GOODBYE Jason." _

"_Wimp!"_

_*Click!*_

As much as Dick protested against the blunt way Jason had put it, it _did_ get him thinking at least. He knew Raven was suspicious, and had grown accustomed to their occasional questions… so maybe it was time to start giving something back rather than shutting them off completely.

Truly, he didn't have a reason to keep them on the outs anymore, and Jason—who has _never been on a team outside Batman_ before, he might add—really did have a point that if he couldn't trust his team, he was doing something wrong. Here he was talking about team dynamics as he assembled a brand new Titans Central, and he couldn't even trust his teammates with this one _little_ detail about his past…

That he'd been a hero a lot longer than they thought he was.

That he'd been _the_ hero, the _first_ young hero.

Ok, so maybe it wasn't such a _little_ detail. Still, that only made it harder to bring up… hard as it was to ignore it too.

Beast Boy especially, who _knew_ Robin—or at least thought he did—was nagging on Dick's conscious. It felt like lying by omission to the others, but it felt like flat out _lying_ to BB, and even if he was a hundred percent used to lying by now and truly thought he deserved an award for the incredible lies he's pulled off in the past, it still didn't make it any easier to lie to his team. He'd always had such a hard time keeping his ID from Young Justice, but back then Wally had known too which made it slightly easier.

He knew he'd probably never tell them his ID, for the same reason he wouldn't tell YJ. Personal issues aside, he would never risk Bruce like that, or Barbara or Tim. He didn't know if that counted for Jason now, with the public thinking he was out of the picture anyway, and the heroes/villain world thinking him dead. Still, it was a fundamental Bat secret.

But saying he was Robin?

He was only risking his own cover from the League and from Bruce. And was 'risking' even the right word? It wasn't like he was in _danger_, he just didn't want to deal with the mess that would ensue if word got out. And it wasn't like his team would go blabbing, right? He trusted them! They wouldn't do that to him, even if it wasn't any real danger, save the occasional Gotham villain that stopped by to say 'hello' (and anyway, he was sure both Jason and Tim would both be in Jump within hours to help should that happen).

Nothing save that fixable problem was stopping him. Technically.

…Only him being a wimp.

_God_, he hated it when Jason was right.

Nightwing was working away at the computer, messaging the possible new members for Titans Central and stewing about this dilemma, when a message bubble popped up, signaling he had an incoming call.

From Tim.

He was very much aware of the rest of his team behind him, Raven meditating and Starfire watching in confusion as BB and Cyborg argued over which movie they were going to see that night while playing video games simultaneously. They decided whoever won the game would decide, and thought it best to argue their points _while_ playing.

Nightwing wanted to just disconnect the signal and message Tim that he was a pawn, but knew that wouldn't go over well. He _knew_ Tim was calling him _now_—instead of at night when there was less chance of the team being around—because Jason had told him to, just to spite Dick and make his point that he should tell the Titans. The bastard had been trying to sabotage Dick's cover for over two months now with terribly timed calls and intrusions when the Titans were most likely around, and was stubborn as ever in believing he was in the right.

It was… nice of him? Sort of. It showed he cared at the very least, annoying as it was. No, forget annoying—bloody freaking _infuriating. _But nice in Jason's own way.

He was just lucky he didn't leave Bludhaven very often and that Dick didn't leave Jump frequently either. They loved each other, they really did, but Jason didn't need to die _twice, _ and by the hands of his own brother at that.

With a defeated yet silent sigh, he opened the link.

"I know he sent you." He huffed without preamble.

"What can I say? He's persistent." Tim's voice came out, and Dick could _hear_ him smirking.

"You're such a pawn, you know that? You shouldn't let him order you around." Nightwing pointed out, going back to his researching to take his mind off Jason's irritating tendencies.

"And he says the same thing about you." Tim sighed dramatically. Nightwing couldn't help but smirk. Poor Tim, always the youngest and always being bossed around. Unfortunately for him he was a right little solider to a tee and followed orders perfectly even if it annoyed him, which only prompted more and more orders, knowing he could be trusted to follow through.

"Who's that?" Starfire wondered aloud, losing interest in the boys' game and coming to hover behind him.

"A friend." Nightwing told her with a warm smile, but didn't elaborate.

"Well, since I can't see them, care to share?" Tim pointed out as Starfire looked curiously at the blank screen his voice was coming from.

"This is Starfire, a teammate." Nightwing said simply, knowing full well Tim already knew all of the Titans (he WAS a Bat whose brother was on a team—no duh he knew all about them).

"Pleasure to sort of meet you Starfire." Tim said politely in that formal way of his. "Call me Rob." Dick figured that was a decent enough answer- YJ used to call him Rob all the time and they couldn't make the connection _that_ easily, could they?

"Hello new friend Rob!" Starfire said cheerily. Nightwing was suddenly very thankful it was Starfire who'd noticed his side conversation rather than one of the other three, because she didn't seem too interested in pushing for details, too happy about making a new friend.

"Hello friend Starfire?" Tim repeated in confusion at the odd way she phrased things. Dick bit back a laugh as he pictured Tim's furrowed brow and how he'd shake his head and brush it off like he always did when encountering things his logical, practical mind couldn't comprehend and just went with it.

"Anyway, while calling you for Red is an added bonus, I actually had a reason to call besides that." Tim said, and Wing tilted his head.

"Really?" he said doubtfully.

"Actually yes. It seems that last time you visited you forgot to stop by and tell a certain redhead that you're alive and ok."

Dick immediately thought of Wally, but dismissed it quickly knowing his best friend would know better than to worry about him, or another Bat for that matter. Besides, even if he did worry, Wally knew trying to get information from Tim or another Bat would be a waste of breath and time—second fastest person on earth or not, he was busy enough without dashing over to Gotham (where metas were not welcomed very warmly to begin with) to waste his breath in a useless argument.

Then he thought of Roy, but dismissed that too. Even if the older boy _did_ worry, he'd never admit it OR give in and ask after his adopted little brother to broadcast that he was concerned. He'd think that as a sign of weakness and he was still always trying to prove he was a capable hero, even though he'd been on his own for quite some time now. "Speedy", or a young archer who'd adopted the original mantle of Green Arrows apprentice after Roy's very public split from the emerald archer, was actually a Titan now, and _he_—who was part of Titans East— was more independent of a hero than Roy, who'd yet to leave Star City and split contact and connections from his old mentor. No, Roy was too proud to inquire after him.

Then he thought of Barbara.

…oh _crap._

"She's pissed, isn't she?" He sighed.

"Yep." Tim said matter-of-factly.

Nightwing shook his head sadly. This was _so_ not going to end well for him. Forget Bruce, he suddenly decided he was going to avoid Babs now too.

"She's taking it out on me, you know." Tim said knowingly and Nightwing paled, knowing what was coming. "That's actually why I gave in to Red and called you. I think I might agree with him now."

"Traitor." He muttered darkly.

"I could easily tell them all now. They can hear me now, right? Would that make it easier? Or better yet, I could just tell her where to find you and watch the fireworks from a reasonable yet safe distance."

Dick stared in horror at the blank screen.

"You _wouldn't!"_ He gasped.

"Do you even _want_ to know what she did when she found out I knew where you were?" Tim demanded. "Or that I knew you were in town and didn't mention it to her?" He sounded slightly hysterical and Dick thought perhaps he should be thanking Tim for holding out this long rather than internally cursing him for threatening to call Babs on him. He didn't need his imagination to know how she would have reacted with only Tim there to take the brunt of it. Dick had always been the only one that could get her to see a lick of sense when she really got pissed.

"Who's 'she'?" Cyborg asked from behind him.

"A friend." Nightwing said tensely, suddenly trying to figure out ways to bribe Tim into not telling Babs his location. Facing a furious Batgirl was one thing—being tracked down by a Barbra Gordon hell-bent on revenge and angry at him was another thing entirely. He almost wished Bruce would find him first.

But… truthfully he wanted to see her more than anyone else. Since he got his brothers back, she'd become the main person he missed the most.

Unfortunately, that didn't stop it from slipping his mind in the chaos of discovering Jason was alive again and just telling her that he was ok. She always got worried when she didn't need to, but hid it well… but he was sure she wasn't happy- and probably vocal about it- after not hearing a word from him in over a year now.

"A _good_ friend?" Beast Boy hedged suggestively, appearing from nowhere beside him and watching the blank screen too.

Nightwing shot him a look. "Not like that." He defended.

Tim scoffed very audibly and Wing glared at the screen even though Tim couldn't see him. "Oh, don't give me that look, you know what I mean." He dismissed, and the Titans exchanged surprised looks while Nightwing just rolled his eyes.

"She's my best friend Rob, it's not like that and you know it." Nightwing scoffed.

"Uh, _no_, KF's your best friend, but whenever I say that you say-"

"That's different! He's like a brother to me and she's-"

"Exactly my point! You can't have two best friends and say '_it's different'_ when one of them is a girl. I know you better than you know yourself dude, and I don't '_know_' what you mean when you say that except that you don't mean what you think you mean…!"

Nightwing made a face.

"You're acting like a child." Tim's deadpanned in response, and again the Titan's exchanged alarmed looks at his knowledge of Nightwing's reactions.

"Seriously dude, who are you?" Cyborg asked, good-naturedly but still slightly suspiciously, "And what girl are we talking about? Who's KF?"

"Old friends." Tim said smoothly.

"From… before I was Nightwing." Dick said in a forced natural tone. No one said anything for a minute, the Titans staring at him in shock and afraid to comment for fear he'd back off and block them out again, and Tim simply silently communicating his approval for Dick's baby-step towards telling his team about his past.

"I call that progress for today." Tim said approvingly, and Nightwing scoffed.

"You're still a pawn." He muttered darkly.

"A pawn being used by your not-girlfriend, mind you. Please remember that detail next time you consider ignoring my messages—my life depends on you being cooperative in this, understand? She _will_ kill me if I don't give updates."

"You're ridiculously overdramatic." Nightwing pointed out dryly.

"And where do you think I learned that from, _Mr. Theatrics_?" Tim drawled sarcastically.

"You are _still_ a pawn."

"And you are _still_ a coward."

"I'm hanging up now."

"Goodbye Wing."

"Whatever, _pawn."_

He quickly cut off the connection and went back to his searching/hacking, trying not to pay attention to the curious/shocked looks his team was giving his back.

"And he knew you from before you were a hero?" Cyborg asked curiously, but also with the note of hesitancy just in case Nightwing decided to shut them out like he normally would have.

"… before I was Nightwing, yes. He knows my civilian identity better than my hero mantle at least." He qualified, not wanting to straight out answer that question and lie, because technically Tim didn't know him _before _he was a hero because he didn't know him when he was six. Tim would have been what, one or two years old when Dick became Robin? No, he certainly didn't know him before he was a hero, but he _did_ know him as Dick Grayson more than he knew Robin, not having been a hero himself while Dick was ever Robin or even his later "mantle" when he was in stealth mode.

"Is he a hero too?" Starfire asked excitedly. "Can he be a Teen Titan?!"

"No!" Nightwing said automatically, almost defensively—more to the idea of Tim being a Teen Titans rather than her first question. And it wasn't like he didn't love the idea of his little brother being part of his hero network, because he _would've_ loved having that, it was more the idea that Tim leaving Bruce and joining another hero network would get all the Bats and the entire League on his case—and not with good attention either.

He could already see the betrayal on Diana and Dinah's faces, could already see Wally barging in here to make sure Tim was on a good team, could already picture in in-depth investigation the Bats would launch on the Titans, the attention from both the hero, villain, and public world… god, it was too much. And that was coming from the guy who led a team, ran an underage hero network, hacked the stock market, and created fake lives for himself around the world all before lunch.

No, Tim joining the Titans would upset the boat far more drastically than anyone but the three brothers in the know could even comprehend.

Unfortunately, his sharp and immediate answer combined with his rather stressed posture at that mental image was the sign he was closing off again to the Titans. They simply shrugged and went back to their own business, Starfire looking slightly confused but accepting, believing they wouldn't get any more answers from him that day.

And, maybe they wouldn't. He didn't know how much he felt like sharing.

Besides, he needed some time to come up with a plan of action should Babs decide to abandon trying to get to him through Tim and track him down herself.

Again, he almost wished Batman would find him first.


	10. Psychopathic Stresser

"You've got problems."

Tim's voice deadpanned out of nowhere, a channel opening on Nightwing's computer without Dick himself having opening it. Dick would never admit to having jumped in surprise at the sudden announcement seeing as Bats did not _do "_**surprised**_"_ , but he would say it was rather alarming in the silence of his lab where he was picking over his latest design for a new birdarang and why his last prototype had failed.

"Did you _hack_ my networks!?" He demanded, abandoning the circuitry scattered about his desk and, tossing his welding goggles over his shoulder, immediately began searching his network for the break Tim used to get in. He wouldn't be a hacker if he didn't keep on top of his supposedly top-secret, impenetrable computer systems.

"No—I really couldn't if I tried—but I used the dead switch code you gave me in case of emergencies to get in."

Dick stopped short.

"…_is_ this an emergency…?" He asked cautiously.

"Depends on your definition." Tim huffed unhappily. "Would you consider Jason showing up in Jump an emergency? If so, then you've got an emergency in approximately eight minutes and forty two seconds."

"_What!?" _ Wing balked. "_Why_ pray tell, his he coming here!? Does he **want** me to kill him?"

"It's been five months dude. Jason's impatient and hates you baby-stepping this thing. You knew this was coming."

Dick let out a silent growl.

"I swear, if it's the last thing I do he's is _so_ going to regret this…" He snarled.

"Threaten later. Right now, you've got seven minutes and fifty three seconds and counting." Tim said robotically. "I'm tracking his motorcycle, but I didn't want to freak you until I was sure. He used a type of Zeta jump to teleport the last sixty miles, and now I'm afraid you're warning is a bit late."

"Where?" Dick growled.

"Main street, coming in from the bypass under the Jackson bridge to right into downtown, and- oh, nope, never mind he's at the docks, three streets in. Another Zeta jump… but he shouldn't have the power to do that, I don't understand-"

"He hacked my tech designs last month. I was banking on him not being able to understand it, much less use it." Nightwing sighed in frustration, hitting the alarms to assemble the team in the main room.

"Funny, he hacked the Batcomputer last week. The only portion looked into was the notes on how to use theoretical Zeta travel. Guess you and Bruce were thinking along the same lines at developing that tech."

Dick groaned. "I can't deal with this right now, I have a psychopath to track down. Talk to you later."

"Good luck…" Tim sighed, and Dick tried not to roll his eyes at his brother's doubtful tone.

Nightwing booked it to the main room and was surprised to see the rest of the team already there.

"Wing!" Cyborg said in surprise. "I was about to ring the alarms for an attack at the docks when I guess you pulled the bells…?" He trailed off.

_Good God, how has he managed to attack someone already?_

"I did." He nodded tensely in confirmation. "And I've got a terrible feeling I know who's doing the attacks. He's in crime alley, and we need to move _now."_

The team exchanged surprised and alarmed looks, but only launched into motion. In fifteen minutes flat they were standing in crime alley, the local cops already flooding the area.

"Police transmissions are talking about local murders…" Cyborg said uncertainly. Jump was many things, certainly not free of crime as evidenced by the team of heroes who decided to take up residence there, and while its villains hardly cared about the well-being of others, those bad guys tended to opt toward mind-control or turning everyone into mutants/stones/trap everyone in another dimension or something of the like. Run of the mill murderers weren't exactly familiar territory for them.

Except that Nightwing knew it wasn't the run-of-the mill murderer.

"Lemme guess, those dead are all petty criminals, drug dealers, gangsters packing heat, or mob members, all with rap sheets." He said blankly.

Cyborg gave him a look and scanned his wrist computer. "…uh, yeah. They are." He dropped the screen and joined the others in giving him a wary look. "How did you know that?" He demanded cautiously.

Nightwing gritted his teeth before letting out a frustrated sigh that came out more as an angry hiss.

"His name is Red Hood. He's… a vigilante too, I guess. But he's dangerous, and he… doesn't care much for criminals."

"Oh, and like we're all buddy-buddy with them?" Beast Boy rolled his eyes with a grin. Nightwing had a brief flashback to Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman, as well as quite a few other villains who he'd all once had weekly dinner with at one point in his life (which Bruce may only have been half-aware of…)

He shook those thoughts off—it _so_ wasn't the time to be getting into that debate.

"Cy, how many are dead so far?"

"So _far?" _He frowned, checking his computer again. "uh… seven already. Preliminary reports say they haven't been down for-"

"More than twenty minutes or so. My source says Hoods only been in town that long, maybe less."

"I do not understand, why is he a vigilante if he is hurting people?" Starfire fretted.

"He's killing criminals." Raven said suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at Nightwing as she felt his stress mounting. "He's a vigilante that kills criminals instead of arresting them… which makes him no better than a criminal himself." She stated blankly, unswervingly.

Nightwing fought to keep himself from flinching at her words.

"We need to find him." Nightwing said through gritted teeth, not commenting on her statement though he knew that _she_ knew full well how he felt about her words. He couldn't argue it right now.

"Beast Boy and I will take the high ground" He continued, getting down to business. "B, go in bird form or something small and discreet. Hood's an expert sniper and knows you're in this city so he'll be looking for some green animal, so it's vital you _stay low!_ Keep to the shadows as much as possible, and keep to small animals too, that should help a bit. Starfire and Raven, you sweep a fifteen block perimeters and if he slips past you, stay on him and call the others—_don't_ engage without all of us there. Cyborg, I need you coordinating, keep tabs on the police reports and direct us where they're following his wake, and be on top of things so when we corner him you can be there." He ordered.

Raven narrowed her eyes yet again at him.

"There's something else you're not telling us." She said in a low, dangerous voice.

"Spill it, we need to know." Beast Boy huffed, not liking being left out while Cyborg raised an eyebrow that he'd try and keep anything from them at all.

Nightwing bit back a frustrated sigh again.

"Red Hood is… well, he's good. _Really_ good. He was trained by the best, and whether he likes to admit it or not, he's got those skills hardwired into him. He doesn't leave his city much but… but I can guarantee you he's here for me. Only, I'm just as good as he is, so he's probably going to go after one of you to get my attention." He didn't like it, but it was the truth.

"Splitting us up but keeping us close in proximity is to draw him out, make him feel like he's got a chance at one of us so he'll come out, and you'll be close to get there quickly." Raven slowly put together.

_And he needs us both there to spill my secrets to you guys AND watch my face while I internally implode and try to kill him for it—because he's a sadistic bastard._ Dick added mentally, but only nodded unhappily once in confirmation at her deduction.

"So we're just bait on this one? What's this guy got against you?" Cyborg grumbled.

"It's… personal." Nightwing shifted, and the Titans exchanged loaded looks. "He's…" He trailed off, not sure how to bring it up under such a time crunch.

Cyborg's computer beeped and he glanced down. "Two gang members were just found eight blocks away with their brains blown out. That makes the total nine so far."

"We must hurry!" Starfire fretted, launching into the air and glancing around nervously.

"I'll explain later. Titan's – go!"

They split into action, going their separate ways as they darted/flew through the alleys and streets, passing the normal criminal activities (who all straightened up and started whistling nervously as the heroes darted past) but they didn't stop as they scanned for their target.

"I take it the guy's got a red hood on?" Cyborg said over their comm links.

"More like a helmet, but yeah," Nightwing answered under his breath as the darted through the shadows of a few warehouses. "He goes for black and gray army garb, loaded with guns and other firepower like that, but he's got tricks and knows his way around a hand-to-hand fight, especially with those stronger than him. He's human, but treat him like a meta—underestimating him will _definitely_ get you killed." He warned them all.

He worried, knowing Jason would never hurt _him_ or Tim, but his team was another thing completely. And, after these past months of getting to know his newly-risen brother, he'd realized that Jason had lost not just his ability to feel guilt or a sense of duty, but also a large portion of his conscience. Jason was a psychopath in the truest sense—he truly didn't understand when he crossed a line, and while Dick didn't mention it for _actual_ fear for his life… he couldn't help but draw parallels from Jason to the Joker.

After all, neither of them realized that using pain or weapons as tools to get attention was bad. Jason had always been like that he supposed, just not so… openly. And never to get the attention of Bruce or his brothers because he knew he'd only get negative attention. Jason didn't seem to care anymore what kind of attention he got now, and Dick honestly feared he'd hurt one of the Titans just to tease his older brother.

Which did nothing to bring Nightwing stress-levels down.

His Bat senses were on high alert as he scanned all the places another Bat would pick when staking out someone trying to track them down. Dick already knew this was pointless, they were playing right into where Jay wanted them—the Titans simply were not trained to hunt down a Bat, he himself being the only one (save Bruce) with a prayer of coming close to finding him without the added luggage of a team blatantly giving them away, on top of the fact that Jason almost definitely had some half-ass plan in his head to draw Dick out.

Though why he wouldn't just _call…_

But… unfortunately… he _knew_ why.

He wanted to force Dick into spilling his secrets to his team, and knowing Jason, he wasn't going to be nice about it. He'd probably get a kick out of it and be laughing for the next month or so, but Dick would not be making it out of this one without a migraine and a very long and stressful conversation with his team about his past.

He'd make Jason pay if it was the last thing he did.

His internal dreading and worrying was cut off into anger and panic as his comm cut off and Jason's mad cackling filled the line, before shutting down completely into dead air.


	11. Enter Jason

Raven felt it more than saw it at first.

The shadows were _her_ domain, and she easily felt sensed another presence slide past her in the darkness cast by a warehouse next to the docks. She lashed out with her energy to pin it, but it was already gone.

"Starfire," She said evenly, slightly lower than normal volume, but the Tamaranian heard her anyway and was suddenly circling over the alley, scanning the alley with her hands glowing green in front of her in preparation for an attack.

Raven muttered under her breath, moving dustbins and boxes out of the way in case their target was hiding somewhere close, and expanding her senses to try and pinpoint him that way.

And then, she could feel him—clear, clever eyes watching the alien girls carefully, with a hint of…amusement? She searched hurriedly, trying to figure out where it was coming from before he… but then he was gone again.

How had he gone so fast? And without so much as a hint to their physical senses he'd been there at all. Only her empathic abilities told them he was even there, which… wasn't human, was it?

"He's playing with us." She frowned, dropping her guard as she felt him slip out of their range.

Starfire landed curiously beside her. "Why would he play? Does he not wish to fight?" She asked.

"He seems to find us funny." Raven frowned deeper. "And by the level of his skill, I think we can safely attribute it to thinking we're pathetic. I felt the same things from the more egotistical villains we've faced, who've called us children."

"Is he old then?" Starfire wondered.

Raven tried to remember what his mind had felt like. It was… confusing, far too complicated for her to follow with emotions that didn't quite add up… not unlike Nightwing's often was. He'd felt… impulsive, yet highly self-restrained, uninhibited by what his emotions told him, and… lonely?

It was a strange kind of lonely though, not the heartbreakingly lonely, but a petty lonely. It was like the irrational crying toddlers did when their mom went to the store for an hour and left them with babysitters.

"I can't see him being that old, but… not much about him makes sense. I could be wrong." She hedged.

Just then, and small explosion rang out by the piers, sounding as if it'd been on the water itself.

They girls exchanged one look before flying off to find the source, and quickly rounded the building to see Cyborg blasting at a shadowed figure slipping here and there on massive boxes waiting to be loaded on to ships in the harbor.

"Argh! Stay still!" Cy bellowed, sonic cannon shooting out laser after laser, but none seeming to come close to the figure.

"What? Bored already? And I thought we were having fun…" They heard an unfamiliar voice tease the massive robot boy.

The figure landed on a crate and actually held still for a second, giving them just long enough to catch a glimpse of him. He had a red helmet cover his head, a black leather jacket and baggy black army cargo pants. He had gray boots, gloves, and a tight gray shirt, and everywhere there were weapons strapped to him in black leather. Hunting knives, handguns, grenades and… were those birdarangs? They were eerily similar to Nightwing's, and dozens of them were clipped to the same position on his belt that Nightwing kept them. And, as Raven looked, she noted two grapple launchers identical to Nightwing's as well, plus several other tools matching their leader's. And, she'd seen some of the stranger tech Nightwing came up with, she shuddered to think what this psychopath had in all those pockets of his jacket and cargo pants.

Their view was ruined as the box Red Hood was standing on exploded, a massive green hippo exploding from underneath it and trying to snap the vigilante/villain up in its jaws.

Hood simply launched into the air with the box and twisted mid-air to avoid its jaws. He hit the ground again with a quick roll and resumed dodging Cyborg's blasts. Raven signaled to Starfire, who immediately began swooping here and there in the air, shooting blast after blast of green energy as fast as she could at their target, while Raven muttered, moving boxes here and there to create obstacles and occasionally throwing one at him to try and pin him underneath it. She couldn't do that too often for the boxes were too massive for her to gain complete control over, and could end up pinning Beast Boy or Starfire as they perused Red Hood across the docks.

"Nightwing? Nightwing!" Cyborg yelled into his communicator before giving up with a grunt. "Our communications are down, I can't get a hold of Wing." He called to his team, who- though nervous—just kept after Hood.

"He'll catch up, don't you worry!" Hood interrupted them, doubling back and slipping past all four of them before they could react and running the opposite direction they'd just come from.

Beast Boy swooped as a falcon past him, landing as a gorilla directly in his path and roaring furiously to stop him. Hood didn't even break stride, leaping into the air and catching BB with a powerful roundhouse kick directly to the chest. The gorilla went flying, but it was a green boy who hit the ground with a resounding smack.

Cyborg was right there, trying to hit him from behind, but Hood ducked instinctively, grabbing his massive arms and judo flipping him. Beast Boy only just got out of the way before Cyborg crashed down on top of him.

Starfire swooped, throwing a barrage of green energy blasts, but Hood flipped and twisted in the air as he rapidly backed up, missing every one of them. Mid-flip, he was suddenly holding two handguns in his fists and opened fired.

Starfire, with all her alien strength, was thankfully bullet resistant, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell. She hit the ground, momentarily forgetting her joy of flight as the sharp pains the bullets left on her skin.

Before Hood could even hit the ground again, he was suspended in black energy.

He glanced to the side to see Raven glaring at him, eyes pitch black as she held him there.

She felt him smirk, and the strange amusement she'd felt in him before returned, full-force.

"Boo." He said evenly with a hint of laughter.

Her mind flooded with images of acid green water, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't scream, she was going mad trying to claw her own eyes out as unholy pain beat down her back to a steady pulse and a maddened, evil laughter….

_Thump….thump… thump… __**thump**__…_

"RAVEN!" She snapped out of it to find herself on the ground, laying with her cheek pressed against the warm concrete of the loading dock. Cyborg had a hand on her shoulder, and once he saw she was awake, he gripped her by the shoulders and dragged her to her feet.

"Starfire and B forced him down the dock some, but we need to catch up quickly, they won't last long without us." He told her, pausing at the paler, shaky look in her eyes. "Are you ok? Can you keep fighting?"

She shook her thoughts clear and inhaled deeply, mentally repeating her mantra over and over again to gain control.

"I… yes, I'm fine. Let's go." She nodded blankly, struggling to keep everything locked up tight.

"What happened? You had him and then you just hit the dirt…?" Cyborg asked cautiously. After all, if it happened again, they needed to know before trying to fight him again.

"I… got too close, I think. Keeping him suspended also means his mind is a lot closer mentally to my own, and somehow… somehow he knew that and used it against me. He has some… unpleasant memories that I was not equip to deal with." She slowly put together. "I won't try that again, and so long as I don't there should be no problems."

Cyborg nodded in accent. "Right then. We need to go help them then," He nodded breaking into a run heading down the docks and Raven soared beside him.

"He's not going anywhere." She said as the piece fell into place in her head.

"What do you mean?" Cy asked.

"I mean that he's waiting for Nightwing. While he doesn't mind hurting us, he's not going to shake us loose until Nightwing gets here. He's… skilled. Far more skilled that any hero or villain we've met before, and if he'd wanted to lose us, he never would've been found in the first place. He's waiting for something."

She didn't know how she knew it, but she did. Perhaps she'd learned more from her brief mental encounter with Red Hood than she'd originally thought. Hopefully that would backfire on the vigilante/villain who'd tried to use her powers against her.

They knew they'd caught up when Starfire went whipping past them, crashing and skidding into the ground after the blow she just took.

"Come on you guys, just a minute or two more and bird brains should have caught up _finally…_ you know, for midget genius he sure is slow at this." Red Hood cackled cheerfully.

"Who _are _you!?" Cyborg demanded, aiming his sonic cannon at the villain again, but not firing. In return, Hood didn't move out of the way, but stood casually in his line of fire with his arms crossed over his chest as he tisked in dismissal.

"A friend." He said simply with a little noncommittal shrug.

"_Friends_ do not attack us." Raven said coldly to him, narrowing her eyes dangerously.

"'_Attack'_ is a bit harsh, don't ya think?" Hood said in mock-hurt. "I was only playing around, it's not like I'd've _killed_ you, right?" He said innocently, with that over-done note that told him he wasn't being completely serious about that statement.

"You need to get out more if that's your definition of _playing around,"_ Beast Boy groaned, rolling out of the crate he'd recently been smashed into (in incidentally crushed seeing as he'd been an elephant at the time).

"You know, that's not the first time I've heard that." Hood said cheekily to the green boy. "Hence why I decided to take a trip to Jump. Have a bit of fun and stuff, right?"

"If your definition of fun is murder, that you really are insane…!" Cyborg growled.

"Oh, trust me, I never denied it." Hood cackled, flipping off the crate as Cyborg blasted at where he'd just been.

The fight resumed again, only this time, it was painfully obvious Hood was just toying with them. He got close for no reason, slipped out of the way in the nick of time just to prove he could, and other than the occasional punch or kick (which _hurt_ like he was a meta or something) he didn't draw his weapons.

And he most certainly didn't need them.

A well-placed jab could stun Beast Boy back into human form, and a single powerful kick to the right circuit boards could freeze Cyborg's systems for half a second and give him that golden window to escape the robot boy's range. Starfire couldn't seem to stay in the air for very long around him, as he kept finding ways of bringing her down or taking her off guard, and Raven was almost no help seeing as all she could do was throw things at him or create obstacles, and none of that did a thing to even break Hood's stride.

Then, without warning, Hood went from dodging and slipping out of their reach, to attack mode.

Ten seconds was all it took: he first launched himself at Cyborg to knock him over, fastening him to the ground by two grappling hooks shot into the concrete, then the other ends shot on the opposite sides make a large black "X" over him and pinning that strong boy to the ground—an electrical shocker slapped to his metal chest to defuse his systems for a minute. He then flipped up, missing Starfire's energy blasts, and hit her square with another barrage of bullets, and once she hit the ground she suddenly found herself caught in a webbing of steel cables launched from yet another grappling gun in Hood's belt. Beast Boy tried to help and caught a kick to the side temple, knocking him back into a crate in human form and hitting his head yet again. He slumped to the ground in a daze.

Raven was slightly harder to pin, using her ability to travel through shadows to keep away from him and not bothering to try and hold him again less he give her another mental breakdown.

Still, it was only a few seconds before she flew out of a shadow and directly into him, Hood seeming to have predicted where she would surface and got ahead of her.

She blinked, not really sure what happened after that, finding herself on the ground again with a throbbing left temple.

She blinked and tried to get her surroundings back together again, and she only just barely grasped the sound of Beast Boy getting up and running past her, his footsteps transforming to the sound of hooves on the concrete ground, before there was a thud and B gave a startled, frightened squeak.

She pushed herself up roughly, ignoring the world as it spun sickeningly, only to have her stomach drop at the scene before her.

Beast Boy, in human form flat on his back, let out another strangled squeaking noise.

"Oooh, let's see if we can get the chicken to squawk now can we?" Red Hood drawled casually. BB just let his green eyes widen to the size of saucers as he stared down the barrel of a gun. "And don't think about shifting unless you think you can shrink faster than a speeding bullet." As if to make a point he sifted the gun just that much closer until the barrel tip was only two inches from the smaller boy's nose.

"Beast Boy!" Cyborg yelled, and the others—just getting over their own obstacles—looked up and froze at the scene before them.

"I wouldn't, I really wouldn't." Red Hood said as they made to move closer to them.

"Let him go." Raven said easily, the shadows seeming to move silently and unobtrusively around her and across the ground towards where the villain held the young hero at gunpoint.

"Keep your freaky ass magic shadows to yourself then." He snapped, not turning from where he was staring down the green boy. Raven came up short, her shadows stopping but still hovering unnaturally close to the confrontation less then were needed.

"Let friend Beast Boy go!" Starfire squeaked, hands over her mouth in worry as she hover behind Cyborg and Raven nervously.

"Yeah-uh… I'd appreciate keeping my brains intact…" BB said in a weak attempt at a joke, gulping loudly, unable to take his eyes off the gun.

Red Hood snorted like he'd actually enjoyed the lame joke and Beast Boy raised two incredulous eyebrows. "Trust me B, death ain't nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be." He said, and they could almost hear the eye roll though they couldn't tell with the helmet.

"How do you know me?" Beast Boy blinked rapidly in surprise. No one ever called him 'B' unless they were good friends.

"Believe it or not, I've known you since before you could do the freaky animal thing Gar." Hood said cheerfully, and they could hear the smirk in his tone.

Raven and Cyborg just exchanged wary and slightly confused looks as Beast Boy floundered.

"_Jason_!" A familiar voice shot across the empty docking area, and all eyes turned to see Nightwing flip over a few upturned crates and start walking –no, _marching—_across the open area towards the confrontation, looking angrier than the Titans had ever seen him… which made no sense at all seeing as he should be _worried_ rather than angry right then.

Wait… did he just call Red Hood… "Jason"?

"Oh, hey there big brother." Red Hood called casually.

The Titans balked.

…

…BROTHER…!?

…

Nightwing grit his teeth in anger as he brushed past Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven and got much closer to the gun-wielding villain/vigilante, seeming to not be concerned at all that he would shoot his teammate.

Blue eyes met green beneath masks and they made a silent little truce. Neither was happy about the slip of information, but they could call it even and continue without bringing up more of those caliber secrets. Jason hadn't come here to spill civilian IDs after all, and he certainly wasn't willing to bargain _his own_ secrets for pissing off his big brother. He was only mildly surprised Dick was willing to open up so quickly, but he had a feeling Dick was only doing it so Jason's mission would be complete in a minimal time possible so that he could leave before he did more damage.

Which, was fine by him. Consider it mission accomplished in record time…!

"You know this guy!? _I_ know this guy!?" Beast Boy said shrilly in panic. Red Hood was looking at Nightwing now, his posture still casual, but his arm was still fully extended and gun still pointing directly at the shape-shifter's head.

"Unfortunately, yes." Nightwing said in a long-suffering sigh.

"Aw, I'm hurt bird boy, and I thought we were friends." Red Hood teased, seemingly not to have changed his in-control, casual persona upon seeing the new arrival, except now Nightwing seemed to be acting the same way.

"_Not_ when you point guns at my teammate's heads." Nightwing growled.

"Eh, you know I wouldn't_ hurt_ him exactly…" Nightwing lifted one eyebrow but didn't say anything. Hood shrugged. "Ok, maybe I would've, but I would have _regretted_ it, maybe, your teammate and all…" Nightwing didn't move, simply crossing his arms over his chest, eyebrow still raised. Red Hood sighed in annoyance. "Ok, ok, _probably_ not, but you weren't here and I was bored!"

Nightwing threw his arms up in the air helplessly. "And god forbid you _wait_ an hour before starting to kill people! For god's sake Jay, this isn't your city!"

"And don't I know it!" Hood huffed. "Perky little twits are they? Criminals give up and sell each other out in three seconds flat-"

"After you kill their partners as warnings." Nightwing cut in.

"Yeah, well, bunch of scared headless chickens as soon as they see a gun…! Heaven forbid they work in _dangerous _environments! They carry their own guns and yet heroes aren't allowed to use them? You're city is full of idiots, Goldie, thought you ought to know."

"Thanks, for that." Wing said dryly, laced with sarcasm.

"Um, you know, I don't mean to interrupt this little reunion or whatever, but I thought I'd be a bit higher on the list of priorities right now or something…?" Beast Boy pointed out, gesturing to the gun in his face.

"Yes, fair point, so Hood if you'd be so kind as to drop the gun…" Nightwing said reasonably.

"But he's rather jumpy about it isn't he?" Red said tilting his head to the side and pressing the gun closer, watching Beast Boy flinch. "What kind of training are you putting him through that he can't handle a gun, birdie?" He said incredulously.

Wing rolled his eyes. "Put the gun down and we'll talk about it, right?" He challenged. "Or should I be telling Kon about this?"

"Kon?" Hood said in confusion.

"Kon- you know, the guy you used to be friends with… that is until you pointed a gun at his girlfriend's little brother…"

Red Hood straightened up. "Damn, haven't talked to him in _forever…_ and this little twerp is Megan's little brother? I forget they have that whole blood thing…" He asked, dropping the gun in distraction and looking Beast Boy up and down.

"W-wait, what do you know about Megan!?" BB cried, glancing from Nightwing to Red Hood in alarmed confusion.

"You have a sister?" Cyborg blurted out in surprise.

"Yeah-well, not really—but yeah! But how do you know about that?!" He demanded of Nightwing, who sighed heavily.

"We'll talk later." Nightwing said tensely, moving forward and grabbing Red Hood by the arm and dragging him away from Beast Boy. For the rough and not-so-respectful treatment, Hood didn't seem to care. In fact, his body language suggested he was highly amused by this whole situation and not at all worried that Nightwing would actually hurt him despite the fact he'd just attacked his team.

But something else was nagging at Raven's mind.

"Red Hood is your brother?" Raven hissed quietly. Nightwing locked eyes with her and they were both remembering his recent leave of absence about his mysterious brother. Had _this_ been that brother? Had this murderer been the reason that their leader was suddenly marginally happier? If so, there was something very, _very _worng…

"Didn't tell you he had a psychotic mass murder as a little brother, did he? Eh, it's fine, I don't tell people I've got a good-for-nothing teacher's pet as a relative either. Bad for the image, ya know?" Hood cackled.

"You are _not_ helping." Nightwing growled gripping Hood's arm tighter until the taller boy actually flinched a little.

"Yes, and historically I've always been _such_ a helpful person." Hood drawled.

"Just leave. You have twenty minutes to get as far away from Jump as you can, got it?" Nightwing hissed, and even his teammates stepped back a little under the fierceness and violence in his glare.

"But I just got here!" Hood complained cheerfully.

"And now a dozen people are dead. Congratulations, you've met your daily quota of graves filled before lunch: now _go."_

"Or what? You'll call dad?"

"Perhaps."

"Isn't the point of living in Jump and hiding your identity all to hide from him? And you're just gonna call him up and tell him I'm here?"

"That's irrelevant right now. And besides, who do you think he'd going to come after: the wayward eldest who simply has a conflict of perspectives and in the middle of giving him the cold shoulder or the mass murdering nutcase who tried to kill him?"

"…touché."

"This is… your… brother…" Starfire said slowly, confusion and worry growing on her face.

"Beast boy has a sister, Birdie has a brother, will the family reveals just keep coming!?" Hood mocked dramatically.

"Oh_ shut the hell up!_" Nightwing snapped, cuffing him over the head so hard that Hood stumbled forward a bit. Hood whipped around to punch him back, but Wing had already moved, pushing his arms down and spinning until it was pinned behind the taller boy's back in a painful lock. "Seriously, how many times are you going to fall for that?"

"Probably forever. I'm not a fast learner." Hood grunted as he struggled to keep from dislocating his shoulder.

"You're down to eighteen minutes." Wing repeated sternly. "To be well on your way home- and don't even _think_ about taking a detour to Metropolis because I'm totally calling Megan and Kon to warn them about you."

"You are not— you haven't talked to them in longer than I have, there's no way!" Red panted against the hold.

"Watch me." Wing snarled pushing him forward roughly. Hood stumbled but came up in a casual walk, dusting himself off as if that happened a lot.

"Well you're no fun." He pointed out lightly.

"Well, I tend to be put out when people start dropping dead around me, now don't I?" Wing quipped right back. "_Seventeen _minutes. And please don't procrastinate, you do that and then you lose track of time and never make it, so just go, right?" He sighed heavily.

Red Hood cackled an evil laugh and walked past Nightwing with his hands raised in mocking defeat. "Fine, fine, I'll go… nice to see you too midget."

"_Really?_ You're gonna bring that up _now?!"_ Nightwing hollered at him as the distinctly taller boy flipped up onto the cargo in an eerily similar way to how Nightwing had arrived.

"It's never a bad time for that joke bird brains!" Hood shot right back, doing a flip and disappearing through the boxes.

There was a silence in which Nightwing pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation at the mess his brother had left in his wake, and the Titans just watched their leader with wide, shell-shocked eyes.


	12. Three Steps Ahead

"Who was that guy and _why_ does he know Megan!?" Beast Boy howled, for once actually looking angry with no trace of his usual humor. Sure, they knew he could be serious, but he always took an easy, open minded approach to life even in the more dire, deathly situations. His green eyes held the echo of animalistic aggression as he stared down Nightwing, determined not to let this go.

They stood in the main room after much convincing on Nightwing's part to get them to go back to the tower without a decent explanation so he could split up and make sure Red Hood actually left the city (and give him an ear-full about how much of an ass he was). That battle also took another large amount of convincing, but that convincing consisted more of a fist fight and a few well-placed batarangs to get the violent vigilante to realize Dick was _not_ in the mood for his usual taunting and get him to _really_ leave. Jason wasn't _completely_ stupid; he knew he'd blown Dick's cover, which, he'd done on purpose, but he also knew not to push his brother any father that day because of it and went semi-quietly without killing anyone else that day.

But, not before Dick proved once and for all that he _really was_ Jason's older brother and could always kick his ass if need be (which, if you'll note, he'd promised Jay he'd do if he ever killed in Jump, so he couldn't say he hadn't been fully warned).

The moment Wing had entered the room after assuring Red Hood was half way back to Bludhaven with only mildly debilitating injuries, it was Beast Boy who had rounded on him first. He clearly saw the unhappy looks on the other's faces, but by their tightly pressed lips Nightwing deduced that B must have been upset all the way back from the tower and they were going to let him go first at yelling at him.

He sighed.

This was going to be difficult.

But, he was a Bat, and "difficult" didn't mean a giant robot with tracking missiles, or a fortified security system, or even bullet wounds and going two weeks without a wink of sleep—_difficult_ meant **talking**__to the people you care about concerning secrets you wanted to keep hidden yet simultaneously knew in the back of your mind you wouldn't be able to hide forever. Dick had long ago recognized that was incredibly_ stupid_ logic, even if it DID happen to every Bat in his family, and had tried very hard to avoid that.

Yet, if the sudden fear in his stomach as he looked at his peeved teammates that he _didn't_ have when staring down the barrel of a gun or when a bomb was counting down with only his wits to disarm it proved anything, it proved how tremendously he'd FAILED at avoiding it. He was good at the fighting and stuff, not the talking. Good at talking WHILE fighting, WHILE being a hero, but not so much at personal things, when it was _his_ lies he was exposing.

Yes, difficult. Very, very difficult.

"Megan's an old friend of ours." He said as evenly as he could to the furious Beast Boy. He had to start somewhere, and disarming this argument seemed like a top priority.

"A _friend?" _The green boy snarled, his eyes wide with—not rage so much anymore—but worry. Ah, of course, he was **afraid** _for_ _Megan,_ not angry at Nightwing's lies. Not yet at least. "I don't want that psychopath anywhere near Megan! I'm your friend too, and he almost _shot _me! He even admitted he might've if you hadn't shown up!" He ranted, the worry ever more pronounced the more he talked.

"He won't hurt Megan, he has no reason to." Nightwing promised him sincerely, and he meant it. "He only showed up here because he wanted to mess with me, and he has no reason like that to go anywhere _near_ Megan. Besides, she has Superboy to protect her, and you know he won't let something as simple as a bullet come within a mile of her."

Now the others were looking even more intrigued at the mention of a Superboy—a hero they'd heard about in rumors starting out his own hero career, but not truly familiar with yet.

"Superboy?" Beast Boy blinked. "Oh… Conner. _Kon-_ that's who you were talking about!" He realized. "They're dating?" He asked randomly.

Nightwing smiled, happy to see his quirky friend's humor back in place, abrupt as the rapid mood change was. "Most definitely. Happened around the same time you met them, though they're good about not showing it on missions."

B suddenly looked suspicious again. "How do _you_ know I met them at all!? I don't tell anyone about that because it's a covert team and I'm not supposed to talk about it!"

"Wow, _you_ kept a secret?" Raven said dryly, and the green boy turned to huff at her.

"_Actually_ yes! I owe them a lot, and Megan's my sister! I wouldn't endanger her by blabbing about her team that technically doesn't exist!" He scoffed proudly.

"Which brings us back to my point: you have a sister!?" Cyborg demanded of his best friend.

Beast Boy looked abashed, like he realized he'd messed up. "Oh, uh… no, not technically, only by blood." He shrugged.

"What?!" Cyborg complained at the unhelpful answer.

"Hate to break it to you, but that means she _is_ your sister." Raven pointed out.

"Is she green as well?" Starfire wondered curiously.

"Uh, yeah she is actually." BB admitted to Starfire looking surprised himself at that off-topic connection. "Actually, she's a lot like you—very alien-y and not so good with the human lingo." He thought aloud.

"Alien-y?" Cyborg frowned.

"Her hero name is Miss. Martian, she's the niece of the Martian Manhunter on the first young hero team called Young Justice." Nightwing supplied.

"Yeah," Beast Boy agreed, looking suspicious again that Wing knew that, but continued to explain anyway, "I used to live on this animal sanctuary on a border between two conflicting countries, so when armies started invading for war, Young Justice showed up and saved my mom and me from being trampled by tanks," he clarified quickly and everyone looked fascinated by this new information about their teammate… well, besides Nightwing who was _there_ for this. He wondered what their reactions to _his_ past would be.

"They decided to hang around for a day or so until they had to go stop the war brewing, but then the sanctuary was attacked because the armies didn't want Young Justice stopping them and I sorta ran away when I wasn't supposed to and got blown up…" He shrugged, looked embarrassed by that while Starfire crushed him in a hug.

"Oh! I am so glad you are still alive after being blown up!" She cried joyously. He looked a little confused but shrugged again with a smile as she released him.

"Eh, it was stupid… Anyway, I was dying and stuff, and needed a blood transfusion but no one there was my blood type, except that Miss. Martian had shape-shifting abilities and could shift her blood to match mine. So she did, I lived, and YJ went off and stopped the war, and then a few months later my eyes and skin started to turn green like hers and I started to shape shift as well. I lived on an animal sanctuary, so I took to turning into animals over all the other stuff Miss. M could do."

Everyone looked shocked.

"She gave you your powers?" Cyborg said, looking impressed. "I'd always assumed you were born a meta." He admitted.

"Nope- turned part Martian when I was eight from blunt force trauma. _**I**_ think it's slightly more entertaining." Beast Boy boasted with a goofy grin.

"I'll say." Raven rolled her eyes.

"And now I get it—_blood_ sister as in _literally_ a _blood_ sister." Cyborg put together.

"Yep!" B chirped happily. "Not only is she not my real sister, but she's not the same _species_ either, but we still call each other brother and sister—by blood at least. When my mom died and I started out as a hero, she was like a mom and a sister and a best friend rolled into one, so you get why I was a bit peeved when trigger-happy red riding hood over there started talking about her…" He gave Wing an annoyed look, like it was _his _fault his brother was insane.

"Hood won't hurt her." He promised again, and B relaxed a bit more at the assurance. "Not only would he then have Conner after him, but probably Martian Manhunter and the rest of the old Young Justice team still around. Not to mention me, and he at least takes my threats seriously… sometimes." He amended carefully. He didn't want to in any way suggest he could _control_ Jason—which he most definitely could NOT, seeing as he _tried_ and promptly _failed_ at that many times—but also to hint at the nature of their relationship. Somehow though, he knew trying to explain his and his wayward brother's relationship to such white-and-black heroes would not go over well—with the exception of Raven, who with her darker nature could possibly understand, if not be accepting or tolerant of it at least.

The phrasing prompted the expected question on cue: "And he's your _brother?_" Cyborg accused, as if blaming him for the murders Hood had committed. Which, if you thought about it, could be a reasonable claim. Dick was the oldest and in charge of protecting this city—crazy family members included.

"Yes, but unlike Megan and Beast Boy, not by blood. In every way but." He sighed.

"And you _still_ put up with him?" Raven demanded in frustration. "He _murders_ people, not to mention the fact he is clearly and obviously out of his mind in sadism and brutality—and you're _not_ bound to him by _actually_ being related to him and you _still_ call him your brother?"

Nightwing had to admit, that was pretty fair reasoning.

"Family doesn't work like that." He sighed in defeat. "Blood or not, he _is_ my brother… and he wasn't always like that, he used to be little and harmless." He defended half-heartedly. Like Jason Todd was ever _harmless. _He was a fighter and a street rat from age zero onward, he was only _less_ harmful than he was now—less trained and less weaponized. "And then he got older and life completely screwed him up. He's a royal jackass to everyone but his brothers, and I'm trying not to take sides and giving him the fair deal no one else is going to—mainly that I _not_ try and put him jail for his… techniques."

"Techniques? You mean murder!"

"Wait- _brothers?!"_

"What fair deal?"

Wing looked around wildly as everyone spoke at once. He held up his hands, pursing his lips in tenseness.

"Just… take a seat. It's a long story. I… didn't actually want to tell you guys all this, but Hood's been bugging me for months to just get it over with already and… well, him showing up was just to force me to spill it. He got his wish, the bastard." He muttered the last part under his breath and the team exchanged curious, if not wary, looks before settling in on the couches and staring expectantly at Nightwing, who took his own seat on the back of the sofa—the perched position making him feel at the ready and more secure even though he knew no one was going to _attack_ him per say; the poised position was comforting as he tried to figure out a way to begin the story.

Cyborg seemed to notice his struggle.

"Start with this—you said _brothers, _as in, more than one." He prompted and Wing shot him a grateful look.

"Yeah, and you've actually already met him too, sort of. Rob—the friend who calls sometimes to chat, is the youngest. Red Hood's in the middle and I'm the oldest. We're all adopted, so not blood brothers, but we're family all the same." He explained.

"I was always impressed by how long Rob could talk to us and still not ever say anything meaningful about himself." Raven noted. "I suppose he gets that from you?" She said with a raised eyebrow.

Nightwing grinned guiltily. "Well, most of the time, but we all really get it from our father. _He's_ the master at evading questions. And our grandfather too, now that I think of it." He considered aloud, thinking about how Alfred basically taught him English and educated him through his younger years, and still in all the quality time teaching a curious little Bat, Dick _still_ didn't know what Alfred's last name was until he'd been living at Wayne Manor for just under a year. He supposed it was safe to assume that Bruce had to learn it from _somewhere_, and he sure as hell didn't learn it from the cave bats.

"And friend Rob is a hero like you? Or a villain like Red Hood?" Starfire asked innocently, and it was only her oblivious, innocently curious tone that kept Nightwing clam enough to respond without snapping defensively at her.

"Red Hood isn't a _villain…!_ Not really. I'm not saying he won't hurt people, but he does it because he feels that's what he needs to do for the greater good: take down criminals by any means necessary. It's… brutal, and not what most consider _hero_ behavior, but his heart is mostly in the right place. I think I mentioned he mainly stays in Bludhaven-"

"Bludhaven!? That place is _dark_." Cyborg shuddered. "Heroes _and_ villains alike don't come back from Bludhaven! That place is so screwed up there's not one politician or cop NOT corrupted or double-timing it as a drug lord or something even worse." He marveled. "Heroes just don't even try with that freak-show of a city."

"But Hood does, and crime is actually going down now a days." Nightwing pointed out eagerly, happy to have an opening to defend his brother. "Ever since he started in on it, it's been getting better, even if only slightly. Sure, it's because of the fear he himself inspires, but Bludhaven is definitely benefiting from a… not so honorable hero. A dark hero for a dark city." He equated reasonably.

"That still doesn't justify murder." Raven frowned.

"No, it doesn't." He agreed quickly. "But in a city where serial killers and rapists walk free with ten dollar bail and the gangs have five times the firepower of the police—who probably wouldn't even get out of their cruisers to stop anything they saw anyway—a person like Red Hood is the only way to keep any order. Here, we turn the bad guys we catch in. If Hood did that, the villain would be released in an hour and right back at it. Justice doesn't work, democracy and due process _doesn't work_ there, only a… an unofficial dictatorship of crime I guess, for lack of a better way to put it, is the only thing that could help a city as hopeless as that."

"So he _kills_ them?" Beast Boy huffed.

Nightwing didn't want to get any farther into this debate because he knew he couldn't win—at least, if winning was defined as convincing his team that Jason was in the right. Because Jason _wasn't_ in the right when he wasn't in Bludhaven. Up unto that point, he'd conveniently left out the fact that Red Hood killed criminals whether they lived in Bludhaven or not, and once they connected the dots and realized Jump City was suddenly short a dozen petty criminals because of Hood's _techniques_, all his arguments would fly out the window and they'd only be angry again.

"I'm not here to argue in his favor, because in all honestly I doubt him and his methods every other day too. Some days I agree with him, other days I have to consciously remind myself he's my brother and I promised him to be understanding in order to not lock him away in the nearest asylum. That's not the point right now—the _point_ is that he _is_ my brother and I'm _not_ abandoning him _or_ going to stop him either. If that makes me a villain too, then I'm sorry, but I'm not giving up on him. So, to answer your question Starfire, Rob _is_ in fact a hero like me _and_ Red Hood."

His tone left no room for argument, and the Titans knew Wing well enough by now to know that when he was serious about being stubborn, he _really was_ stubborn as hell and nothing short of a nuclear bomb could unlock the vault that was his mind, and probably not even then. He made his decisions, and he stuck with them. The ethics conversation concerning Red Hood was one they didn't want to get any farther into, because they had a feeling that no one would end up being right, no matter how much they argued, so they let it be. For now at least.

"Does your father mind that all of his sons our heroes then?" Starfire wondered aloud, and Nightwing relaxed from the tension he hadn't known he'd been holding through that conversation now that they'd moved topics.

"Well, at first I guess he did, but we didn't give him much choice. Since then I had hoped we'd made him proud…" No one missed the way he violently grimaced when he'd said that.

The words were true enough, but now… after both him and Jason going "rogue" and Tim… being Tim, the perfect little solider although they all knew he hardly agreed with Bruce anymore than Dick or Jason had growing up as young heroes, he really did wonder if Bruce was still proud his sons had become heroes.

'Duty comes first'—that was the rule that every Bat abided by. But 'family comes first' was also another rule that no one had ever really clarified if it was more or less important than duty coming first. Dick got the feeling Bruce himself really didn't know, and now that he was confronted by choosing between his sons and their missions, what did he decide?

He was the god damned Batman, and the original Boy Wonder though he was, Dick still wasn't sure if he knew his father and old partner well enough to know the answer to that. Bruce was fueled by the internal conflict of right and wrong, and this whole ordeal was so far from black and white and so blatantly in that impenetrable gray area, that Dick wondered if the dilemma might be just too much for Bruce. Jason, Barbara, Dick, Alfred, and even Tim to a degree, they all knew where they stood—they all knew the pros and cons of each side and picked a stance. Bruce didn't get that kind of solace from having his decision made and done with—he constantly struggled with it.

So was he proud?

Dick got the feeling no one would ever know. Bruce included.

"Again, I'm always impressed by your emotions." Raven said quietly, and Wing gave her a curious look. She clarified, "Your emotions are all over the place, ranging from despair to acceptance to anger and depression, but none of it shows on your face."

He smiled wryly. "Another thing I learned from my father. Calling him stoic would be the understatement of the year." He sighed, looking out the window lost in thought for a moment.

"So… how does Hood know me? More importantly, how do I know him?" Beast Boy asked, obviously and not-so-smoothly changing the subject from the rather depressed tone Nightwing had taken on, and for that he was grateful, sending BB a small smile.

"My brothers and I are very good at pretending to be one another, especially before we all left home and sometimes had to pretend to be each other every other day. You may have called me more than a couple times and I wasn't home, so one of my brothers probably just stepped in and acted like me to cover. They know you very well from that, though to you I guess it seems like you only know one person."

Everyone looked shocked.

"That's creepy!" Cyborg declared. "Are you telling me that Red Hood could put on your suit and we wouldn't know the difference?!" He demanded.

"Well, as I'm sure you noticed, he's much taller than me now, so probably not. But when we were younger and it wasn't so pronounced, it's pretty likely. It was mainly used for talking over communicators or the like, rather than face-to-face encounters. Certain mannerisms are hard to fake when standing in front of someone who knows both you and the person you're trying to fake well, so it's mostly reserved for communicator and video chat impersonations."

"And you just… got away with it?" Beast Boy said in a daze, looking like he was having a hard time processing this new information.

"We're all excellent actors." Nightwing shrugged, but with a tiny prideful smirk.

"Why would you need to pretend to be each other?" Starfire fretted. "Could he not say you were not there and he should call back later? Why would you need to deceive him?"

Nightwing pursed his lips again, trying to think of a way to explain it.

"So far as Beast Boy and the others around him knew, I had no brothers. We're all heroes, but we had to grow into it very carefully and make sure no one realized there was a progression happening. It would make it very difficult to obtain credibility and put all our lives at risk, so we kept it hidden, even from our allies. So far as they knew, we were all one person. Since then it's changed and everyone, even the public knows there were three of us, but at the time it was top secret, for our sakes and our secret identity's sake as well."

"I do not understand." Starfire frowned the same time Beast Boy and Cyborg said "You lost me."

Well, there goes trying to explain it without giving out details.

He gritted his teeth and let out a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

"Well… you all know I've been a hero for a while now, but… what you _don't_ know that I've only been Nightwing for about a year and a half now. In fact, I put on this suit for the first time two days before I met you all."

They exchanged surprised looks. "I never really considered that heroes might change their costumes and names and still be the same person." Raven admitted.

"It doesn't seem natural I guess." Cyborg frowned.

Nightwing smiled ruefully. "Heroes get this impression on the public that they're more than mortal—and some are for sure, with unique powers that can't be replicated, but it's not always the case. Heroes are still people that can get hurt and that can be killed, but the mantle they wore is what is important, what keeps the people hopeful and feeling safe. It doesn't matter who's wearing the mask so long as someone is and they're still protecting people with it." He sighed.

"That's depressing." Beast Boy noted bluntly.

"But very true!" Starfire burst out in whole-hearted agreement. "On Tamaran, the great hero of _Blargnock_ wears a helmet of a_ Jarkaracum_ skull into battle and has a legacy of never being defeated! It has been thousands of years since that hero has lived, yet when my people go to war they rally behind a warrior in that armor and calls him _Blargnock_ even though it is surely not the same warrior that has lived all this time through the hundreds of wars. It is the spirit of the warrior we fight for." She declared proudly. Dick had to admit, of everyone he had not guessed it would be Starfire who would grasp this idea of handing down a mask, but the proud fire in her eyes told them all how powerful and important this process was and just how completely she supported it. She did not have a mask to hand down, but Nightwing didn't doubt for a second that if she did, she would hand it down with the utmost care and respect as Dick had for Jason, and then for Tim when Jason couldn't do it himself. He gave her a thankful smile.

"She's right, the person behind the mantle doesn't matter so long as they can still pretend to be that hero. I've seen many heroes go down in a fight, and a week later someone's replaced them, wearing their same costume and trying to figure out how to measure up to a legacy. Because that's all it is: a legacy, a name. Sometimes a hero is larger than life, and stepping up to that role is daunting. I've been a hero a lot longer than you might think, and when I outgrew one mask, I exchanged it for another. Then, when that one became old too, I moved cities and became Nightwing."

"Dude, you've been _three_ heroes? When do you sleep?" Beast Boy joked.

_Not often._ Nightwing thought truthfully, but just smiled along with the joke.

"I wasn't three heroes _all at once_ B, it was just the progression it took. When I was done with my first mantle, I gave it to Hood, who continued it until he became Red Hood and handed it down to Rob. Rob is still that hero, but in a couple years, once he's old enough, I expect he'll find a new mantle of his own creation like Hood and I did."

"This is insane, it's like a family business or something!" Cyborg exclaimed. "It's like there's this whole side to being a hero I didn't even realize…" He marveled.

"The show part?" Nightwing offered. "What the public sees is just as important as what actually happens. The mood of a city can change everything, and the business aspect of being a hero is a crucial part that doesn't just happen—it's learned."

"Which is why you've managed to organize all the Titans so successfully and earn us credibility." Raven realized. "You were the only one with enough experience to know what we needed to do because this is a family business for you. Not just heroes banding together informally, but an _actual_ business you already knew how to run."

Nightwing considered that, and decided it was a fairly accurate description.

"In a way. We're all young enough that we don't have to get into the conversations about training new recruits to be us, not to mention the fact that most of the Titans have unique powers and don't wear masks to hand down… but yes, basically, this—this team and this hero thing— is a formula I've already worked through and perfected in my own way. What good would it be to keep it to myself? The Titans are doing great things, and all I did was provide a medium for it."

"I am so confused by all of this." Beast Boy groaned, rubbing his eyes. "Where did you even _learn_ all this stuff anyway?"

"I took notes." Nightwing smirked.

"Notes of what?" Starfire asked.

Again, here goes nothing.

"The League." He answered simply. Everyone blinked for a moment while they absorbed that.

"I thought we hated the League?" Cyborg frowned in confusion.

"Whoever said that?" Wing asked politely with a too-innocent expression.

"I believe we assumed since you took care not to cross their paths and avoid them that you did not like them very much." Starfire pointed out.

"Oh no, I love them all to death. They practically raised me. But, that's the problem." Nightwing told her cheerfully, but she only looked more confused at that. He smirked a bit wearily, "You see, they're like my family, and if I ever crossed paths with one of them again, I've no doubt they'd recognize me in a second, and I couldn't let that happen."

"Why not?" Raven demanded.

He looked down and away, flinching internally at the memories and the mental image of a very, _very_ pissed off Batman after he found out what his eldest son had done.

"I… I deviated. I went a little rouge after… well, some very bad things happened and I didn't react well. My family was hurt and I was furious that the monster responsible wasn't going to pay for it so… so I did a very _non_-hero-like thing and… sort of ran away. I didn't want to face the League, to face _my_ _father_, with what I had done, because I didn't regret it, but I knew they'd want me to be… and I just couldn't. I wouldn't, and I still won't. But… they _are_ my family, and they mean well, but I just can't be who they want me to be. So I ran, and I hid under the mantle of Nightwing with the phony reputation that I disliked the League and we've kept our distances nicely."

"What did you do?" Starfire worried.

"Shouldn't your family be accepting or whatever?" Cyborg frowned.

"And wait- how does this relate to me knowing you? Which hero were you and how did I know you/your brothers or whatever the heck's going on!?" Beast Boy complained.

"No, no, no, back up a minute," Raven shushed them all. "You've been explaining all this without ever giving any details, and it's not working to help our confusion. We want to know, and we want to know _exactly_ what you're trying to avoid telling us, so spill it—with some actually _facts_ this time please." She huffed, leaning back and crossing her arms defiantly.

Nightwing had to admit her stare was impressive, if not pretty close to a Bat-glare, then definitely had the potential to be one at least. He shelved that thought for the moment and went back to fretting about this next part.

"I…" But he suddenly lost his voice. How was he supposed to just out and say everything he'd been trying too hard to keep hushed up and forgotten? He never talked about himself with his team, not even Young Justice before them. But this wasn't exactly about _him_ though, was it? It was about Robin, and _Robin's_ transition and history, not Richard Grayson or Jason Todd or Time Drake.

Only Robin.

He could talk about Robin then, right?

He took a deep breath.

"When I was little, my parents died and I was adopted by a man who turned out to have a nightlife as a vigilante in Gotham City." Beast Boy and Cyborg immediately tensed, knowing there was only one vigilante in Gotham—or, at least only one that mattered. The girls, being aliens who weren't as attuned to the League superheroes, didn't seem to catch on right away. "I was angry and upset about my parent's death and needed a way to focus my energies, so I followed him out on patrol until he gave up and actually trained me as his partner. Over time we got a formidable reputation both in Gotham and across the country, if not the world. He was one of the founding members of the Justice League and once I'd grown up some, I eventually joined the League's sub-team of sorts, or the team that consisted of all the young partners of the main League members—Young Justice. There was Martian Manhunter and Miss. Martian, Aquaman and Aqualad, Green Arrow and Artemis, Superman and Superboy, Flash and Kid Flash… and me."

"Robin." Beast Boy gaped, looking about ready to faint as his impossibly wide eyes stared at Nightwing as if he'd grown another head in the last five minutes.

"WHAT!?" Cyborg roared. "AS IN _**BATMAN**_ AND ROBIN!? _**BOY WONDER**_ ROBIN!?" He freaked.

"I'm not a boy anymore." Nightwing noted with one calmly raised eyebrow, though he wasn't particularly feeling calm at all. He couldn't decide if he felt nervous, proud, happy, or insulted by their reaction, and decided on a combination of it all, mixed in with a little confusion and weariness at it all.

"Wait… so it was _you_ in the pixie boots?" Raven said dryly, but Wing spotted the way her lips were threatening to curl upwards into a smirk.

"Oi! I was _seven_ thankyouverymuch, and _I_ thought pixie boots were pretty damn cool at the time, so drop it!" He defended himself unashamed, having had this argument many, _many_ times before and even managing to return the smirk playfully.

"I think I'm gonna faint." Beast Boy muttered dramatically, while Cyborg was obviously fan-girling silently. Even Raven through her teasing looked impressed, and while Starfire didn't exactly know a whole lot of Batman's reputation, she'd certainly heard of him and looked intrigued at least. No young hero becomes a hero without knowing about Robin, the Boy Wonder, and the _first_ hero under the age of twenty much less under the age of _ten. _He set the precedent and the goals of all kid/teenage heroes out there: he _WAS_ the reason most kids with odd powers or abilities tried to be heroes at all. Even the teenage villains saw Robin as an idol of sorts—except for the hero part—because he was the first kid ever to be taken seriously in the adult world. It meant a heck of a lot.

"So wait," Beast Boy said in a daze. "All the times I called Robin… I actually called _you_, or I could've been talking to… to _Red Hood_ or Rob? Rob! _Robin!_ He's the current Robin!" He squeaked.

"No way, this is unreal." Cyborg muttered. "There is _no way_ Red Hood was a Robin- it's just not possible."

"How did he go from… from a bright little bird to _that?"_ Raven wondered quietly.

"Life happened." Wing said with a tense expression. "Or death, depending how you look at it."

"Who died?" Cyborg asked seriously.

Nightwing only paused for the briefest moment to flinch at the memories.

"He did."

There was a long pause in which Dick just carefully watched his teams' expressions and figure out what they were thinking. For the most part, no one seemed to be immediately rejecting it, more just trying to puzzle together what he meant by that and reason out what he _actually_ meant.

"Like, metaphorically?" Beast Boy prompted.

"No, as in literally. Physically, emotionally, spiritually _actually_ dead as a doornail." Wing said evenly. "I was at his funeral and everything. I… watched them put him in the ground… although he died as Robin, and we couldn't give away his secret ID or expose us all, so it was only us, our father, and our grandfather…" He trailed off, masked eyes wide and spacey as he got lost in what he'd decided was definitely one of the top worst days of his life. Right up there with the night his parent's died and the day Two-Face beat his skull in and the mission he met the Joker for the first time.

Images of Bruce, stoically refusing to break down; Alfred, silent tears falling as he softly read a short passage from an old Bible; Tim, sobbing as he desperately clutched his big brother's side; Barbara, staring at the coffin in permanent shock, like she couldn't believe it was all actually happening; even Selina, standing just behind Bruce's shoulder had tear-filled eyes, but also said nothing and barely gave any hint of an expression before disappearing before the coffin was even lowered.

It was a bad day.

No one other than those who attended even knew Jason was dead. That was partly the reason Dick couldn't stand to be there a second longer: Bruce couldn't accept one of his sons was dead and was trying to act like he wasn't. He lied to the League and to everyone… just like Dick had lied to Young Justice about the Robin in Gotham not being him, not even telling them his real name or that he even _had_ brothers…

The lies were too much.

Jason died a hero's death, and everyone who'd ever donned a costume should've been there to give him the biggest send off, should have remembered his life and the good times like you're supposed to do at funerals, to say goodbye.

But most didn't even know Jason existed, much less remember the good times when he was dead.

It made Dick furious, and he blamed Bruce for the deception and for slighting his little brother that way, even if he was also plagued with guilt for having had a hand in it.

He honestly didn't know, and didn't _want_ to know, if the League now knew Jason had died. He supposed they did, because most knew a Robin had died, and even though there were rumors on the street for the public, he had little doubt the League had forced the real answer out of Batman. Normally force wouldn't work, but Dick had a feeling the League would initially think it was _him_ that was dead instead of realizing there was another Robin, and probably would've been more than adamant about the truth. They had, after all, practically raised him alongside Batman.

"He can't have been dead, because he tried to shoot me an hour ago," Beast Boy pointed out as if talking to a child.

Nightwing rolled his eyes. "Raven, is it possible to bring someone back from the dead?" he asked bluntly, and the mentioned heroine looked startled. With her background in deep magic, he knew she'd probably have heard of something like the Lazarus Pit before, but not ever really believed it until now.

"Technically yes, I suppose." She admitted, still looking doubtful. "The theory is there and history claims it's been done before using certain techniques and some very ancient brands of magic, but if anything they're stories at this point. If anyone was ever brought back from the dead, it probably happened eons ago when magic was at its height of power." She reasoned

"Ever hear of something called a Lazarus Pit?" He said gently, and everyone was surprised and alarmed as all the color—what very minimal color was there to begin with—drained from Raven's face.

"That is dark magic." She said gravely. "Those pits are old, _old _magic that can't be contained and shouldn't be messed with. They're pure evil disguised by good intent. They're used to rejuvenate in small amounts, not to cure sickness or even _death!_ I could only guess at what terrible things could happen if it was used on a corpse." She shuddered involuntarily.

Nightwing felt his stomach drop. He suspected as much, but hearing it from an authority source on the topic just made it so much worse. Poor Jason… no one but him is allowed to pick on/hurt his little brother, and hearing this…

"You met Red Hood. I think you've got your answer." He said in a deadened voice. He couldn't think about his emotions right then, he'd break down if he did.

Raven looked at him like he'd just told her she'd look good in pink.

"There's no way." She declared, but sounded rather unsure. "Lazarus Pits are… are ancient history! Hundreds of magicians through the years have all but destroyed them, and covered them up and locked them away if they couldn't physically damage them! No magician would be foolish enough to-!"

"His name is Ra al Guhl. He's a crime lord and head of a family of assassins and responsible for Hood's death. He felt guilty about it because he respected Batman, and killing other heroes was never his intent, so he used the pit he'd been using for centuries to keep him alive on Hood's corpse and… instant crazy brother."

Ok, so maybe it was the pain and the tortured months after the pit that turned him crazier, and didn't happen so instantly, but it was close enough to what they needed to know.

Raven looked truly freaked.

"I… I caught a glimpse of his mind… and… just that one second of exposure made me black out, I couldn't even… I mean the pain…" She trailed off, seeming to be overwhelmed.

"Suddenly I don't mind him being so whacko." Beast Boy frowned. "Ok, well, actually I still mind that 'cuz he tried to kill me, but I get it more I guess…?"

Cyborg rolled his eyes at his antics. "Ok, getting back on topic now—Robin the current Boy Wonder is your little brother, Red Hood is the Robin that died but came back to life as a vil-uh, unorthodox hero, I guess-"

"You can say homicidal psychopath, I do it all the time." Nightwing nodded understandingly to him.

"Yes, but you say it fondly and I'm trying to be respectful here," Cy frowned with another eye roll. "My point is this… Batman's your father?"

They all looked at him with wide eyes as that little fact fully sunk in.

Nightwing smiled wryly. "Adoptive father, yeah. Between you and me, he's not so scary out of the cowl. He was actually a decent dad when not pulling his '_I am the night'_ crap." He said with a amused scoff.

They stared at him for a moment.

BB and Cyborg especially seemed to be having issues wrapping their heads around this. The girls were impressed of course, but Beast Boy had met Batman once or twice and the dark knight scared the living daylights out of him, not to mention Cyborg was pretty much the dynamic duo's biggest fan. Batman was his favorite hero, and the one he'd been trying to emulate when he first started out as a hero—before quickly learning being a massive half-robot didn't exactly fit in to being stealthy and he had too much humor/enjoyment in life to be the stoic badass he'd grown up adoring Batman for being.

Finding out their teammate was Batman's _son_ was just… mind-boggling.

"And the point of avoiding the League is to avoid him?" Cyborg struggled to connect, still having issues accepting this news. "Can… I mean, is it even _possible_ to hide from Batman? The world's greatest detective and he can't track down his own son?" He said in amazement.

"Well, it helps that I'm the world's _second_ greatest detective," Wing rolled his eyes. "I know how he thinks, what he's looking for, and even he will admit I'm ten times the hacker he is. Plus, I've got an ex-Robin and the current Robins helping out and occasionally setting up decoys in the Batcomputer to throw him off my trail."

"Complicated." Raven muttered.

The others didn't react, still caught up in him saying he was a better hacker than _Batman._

"But, the main thing I've got going for me is that he doesn't _really_ want to find me." He continued, "I know he's looked, but he hasn't looked with the unrelenting determination that is Batman yet, only as my dad wondering where his son is. Bats, for all their talents, are terrible at emotional conflict, hence the stoicism when in masks. I let him down, and he doesn't want to open that can of worms just yet, so he's allowing me to hide and not pushing much farther yet." He admitted.

"How have you let him down?" Beast Boy frowned.

"I deviated." Nightwing sighed.

"Deviated as in… Red Hood kind of rouge, or deviated as in you didn't follow orders kind of thing?" Cyborg frowned too.

"Deviated as in I went against the rules Batman creates to keep everything in order." He said. At their confused looks, he sighed in defeat and explained further. "Batman has certain rules that you can't break if you want to be trained by him—mainly common sense things, but solid unbreakable rules none the less. Things like never reveal your secret ID, never give away stylistic training secrets, never kill, and never give up. There are others, but those are the important ones. More specifically under the 'never kill' category is never to kill the Joker."

"Joker? Why, out of everyone, would Batman _not_ want to kill the Joker!?" Cyborg exclaimed. "He's Batman's arch enemy and a sadistic madman that's killed _thousands_ and driven hundreds more insane! How is that a rule?" He demanded.

Wing pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"I get that logic, I _really do, _but there's more to it than that." He tried to explain. "It's a slippery slope when it comes to Batman—he gives the persona of being evil to scare away villains and criminals, and will do everything _short_ of killing someone to get the job done. _If_ he ever killed… it wouldn't stop."

"And he'd turn into a villain himself." Raven said gravely.

Nightwing shrugged. "He's my dad, my partner—I'd like to think I know him best, but even I don't know the answer to what would happen. All I know is that Batman _cannot_ kill. It would be bad, let's say, and leave it at that."

B and Cy shivered involuntarily while the girls looked troubled with that information.

"What does this mean for you deviating?" Star asked.

"It's important to know this about the Bat, because the same thing would happen if the Joker died." Nightwing said in frustration at that idea. "As stupid as it is, the Joker is Batman's balance. So long as the Joker is still alive and causing trouble, Batman has a reason to keep going and keep fighting the good fight even when everything else in the world has gone to hell. So long as the Joker's alive, Batman cannot be destroyed, he would never give up so long as he has that reason to keep going."

"Kill the Joker…" Cy realized.

"Batman's determination crumbles." Beast Boy finished.

"And a Batman without determination is just a guy in a cape." Raven sighed.

"Pretty much." Wing agreed softly. "You know… Batman created the Joker." They snapped their heads around at that news, all eyes panicky wide.

"_What?!"_ Cyborg gasped.

Dick shrugged. "Nearly all heroes are responsible for creating their own arch nemesis', and Batman is no exception. The Joker used to be your typical criminal, very average and not that crazy or hard to defeat. In fact, he was rather a coward, so when Batman showed up to take him in, he ran. Batman chased him into a chemical warehouse where he accidently fell into one of the vats. His skin was bleached white, his lips permanently blood red, and went over the edge crazy."

"And became the Joker." Beast Boy said, horrified. "Dude… _so_ not cool."

Nightwing gave a wry, bitter little smile. "Batman is not perfect. He makes mistakes and then focuses on fixing them until he never makes them again, which is why he seems perfect. The Joker is the embodiment that he isn't perfect, and getting rid of that… yes, he'd be a guy in a cape." He looked up at his teams shocked looks. "If I tell you something, would you keep it secret? I mean, all of this is top secret obviously, but this especially?"

They looked surprised but welcoming. "Of course! We shall be the vaults of secrets!" Starfire declared, the others nodding.

"Yeah, and I've go ta feeling spilling any of this would not be so great. For anyone." Cyborg said quietly.

"You've got no idea." Nightwing sighed tiredly.

"None of this leaves the Tower. Ever." Raven nodded, and they all eagerly agreed.

Nightwing smiled, actually enjoying this sharing of his life with his friends. It was… new, to say the least but… nice. It… wasn't like lying, or scheming, and he hadn't _stopped_ doing that in so long he almost forgot what it was like. Maybe that was why he liked being around Jason so much, jerk as he was: because he didn't have to hide. He could share and not worry.

Being trusted put pressure on him, but trusting others was… kind of okay with him.

"It's sort of a tradition at this point in my family that your mantle is your greatest fear." He confessed, watching their eyes widen in curiosity. "When my dad was little, he was terrified of bats. He didn't want to be afraid anymore, so when he became a hero…"

"He chose bats as his mantle." Cyborg said excitedly.

"It's called exposure," Raven reasoned, "If you expose yourself to your fear, you can get over it. It's actually genius." She approved.

"Does that mean you were afraid of robins?" Beast Boy raised an eyebrow at their leader, who rolled his eyes.

"No, I was afraid of heights." He admitted. The team blinked. He smirked, "I was unfortunate enough to watch most of my family fall to their deaths when I was little, so it didn't sit well with me for a time. I used to love being up high, and my mom would call me her little robin referring to how much I liked to climb trees and be up somewhere, and then… well, once they were gone it was a fear of its own for a while."

They sat in silence, staring at him with wide eyes, as if afraid to comment.

He sighed internally. "I say this because my brother did in fact die, and it was the Joker who killed him. The Joker, who before he fell into those chemicals and went crazy, was a lower-level criminal who called himself The Red Hood."

Raven's eyes bugged out. "And your brother picked that name because he feared that clown?"

"_I'd_ be afraid of the guy who killed me." Beast Boy muttered.

"That must've been tough." Cyborg frowned. "Your dad's arch enemy kills you and your dad can't kill the SOB because it'd destroy a city. Sucks." He sympathized, and Nightwing gave him a curious look.

"That's actually why he's so… aggressive, I guess. He was always a bit too aggressive to be a cut and clean traditional hero, and he's _always_ had temper issues, but coming back from the dead messed with him in a way that he can't sensor himself anymore, not even slightly. He's angry at Batman for not doing anything to avenge him. He always used to think I was the favorite son, and it irked him, and he's under the belief if _I'd_ been the one killed the Bat would've done something, but because it was him, he didn't."

"That's stupid." BB summed up.

"I never said he wasn't insane." Nightwing noted carefully.

"A father would not care which son is killed, he would always be hurt in the end." Starfire said sadly.

"Hood doesn't see it, and truthfully, he probably never will." Wing sighed. "And all that anger makes him twice as aggressive. Which is no help when trying to coral him."

"But he _does_ listen to you, a little." Raven pointed out. "You got him to leave. I sensed this little killing spree was an _attention_ getter. I'd compare it to a toddler throwing a tantrum to get the attention of their big brother, only with guns." She frowned.

"In truth, I'd have to agree with that sentiment." Nightwing frowned too, pinching the bridge of his nose in stress. "But as for listening to me… I'm hesitant at the least to claim to be able to control him. The Bat and I found him trying to steal the tires off the _Batmobile_, and he couldn't've been more than twelve or something at the time. He's got guts, and even if I could kick his ass any day of the week, I'd wonder at what cost. He's not one to give up easily, none of my family are, but him especially. He doesn't fear pain or loss, and that can make a dangerous opponent."

"Dude, I might be over him trying to kill me. Stealing the tires off the _Batmobile_ is just freakin awesome." Beast Boy snickered with thrilled eyes.

"Awesome, and _stupid."_ Cyborg shook his head.

Nightwing grinned fondly. "He is fearless. Always has been. And… he was a great Robin, while it lasted." He finished slightly sadly.

0000000000000

_Elsewhere…_

0000000000000

"Well this is just a load of _crap…!"_

"You brought this on yourself."

"Goldie's making me seem like some kicked puppy! And look at the redhead—she looks about ready to cry! They didn't seem too concerned when I was kicking their asses to the curb!"

"Relax, he's trying to angle it so they don't come after you for what you've done. He's _humanizing_ you, which you should be _grateful_ for seeing as you've accomplished your mission and now Dick can still talk to you _and_ be on good terms with the Titans."

"… you're so logical it hurts. You been taking lessons from Nerdy-locks down there?"

"Shut up."

"Just pointing it out…. And, while we're on the topic of my mission accomplished, you figured out how to get _your_ mission done?"

"Yes, but unlike you, I have patience."

"If you take too long, she'll kill you before it plays out."

"Don't you think I _know_ that!? No, this way Dick will have time to adjust to his team now knowing, and she'll get her revenge in due time."

"You'll record it, right? I _need_ to see that play out."

"Of _course…! _What do you take me for, a rookie?"

"Coulda fooled me."

"Shut up. It's gonna be priceless… I just have to avoid sparring with her until then. She's got a _lot_ of pent up frustration, and I get bruised ribs from her _glares_ alone."

"You mean **sexual** frustration."

"You're sick. Go bother Wing with that crap."

"I'm not the one who has to deal with her while she's on permanent PMS from missing our little midget."

"Leave her alone, leave _him_ alone, and just butt out, okay? I've got it covered."

"Whatever dude, your funeral. And trust me, those things are a bore."

"Ha-ha, it's so funny I forgot to laugh…"

"You're _no fun!"_

"You want fun? Maybe you shouldn't have pissed off the brother who actually finds you _funny."_

"Ouch Timbo, that hurts, it really does."

"Oh, get lost."

"Naw, you'd miss me too much."

"Wanna bet?"

"I'll leave when Wing closes this security break in his tower's cameras."

"Oh, it's not a break. He left it open.

"Uh, WHY?"

"Probably to see your face when he makes you out like a kicked puppy. Note the planted webcam on the screen."

"… that _bastard_…. But _damn_ he's good…."

"And now he had you on video admitting it too."

"…"

"…"

"… _damn it."_


	13. Enter Barbara

Beast Boy yawned widely, exposing all his teeth and stretching lazily. It was one of those rare mornings when he was awake at a reasonable hour, but he blamed that on the fact the Titans hadn't had a late-night mission in a couple days. It happened randomly sometimes—that criminals would take a break from doing their evil things in favor of sleep like normal human beings for once. It didn't happen often (not nearly often enough in his opinion) but it did happen, and he was excited that it was the second morning in a row he got to wake up on his own rather than to some kind of alarm of a bank being robbed at four am, or Cyborg deciding to pull a prank or Nightwing demanding they train and wake him preemptively. The extra rest made him happier, and he was even up pretty early, even considering making breakfast for the others.

He glanced at the clock as he entered the main room and it read 11:38 am back at him.

Ok, it was early for _him_.

Maybe he'd just make lunch.

He shuffled tiredly into the kitchen and started pulling out things randomly, tossing ingredients from the fridge this way and that and kind of hoping they'd land on a counter. He'd just decided on making tofu waffles and was looking for a spoon when the beautiful red headed girl sitting at the bar stool handed it to him.

"Thanks," He said gratefully, taking the utensil and turning back to the stove.

"No problem." She dismissed easily, going back to glancing curiously around the room.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"WOAH!" He whipped around, brandishing the wooden spoon at the stranger in their kitchen. No— not even— the stranger in the _tower!_

"Took you long enough." The girl nodded casually to him with a hint of amused disapproval.

He blinked.

"How long have you been there?!" He demanded warily, wondering if he should just start yelling or pull an alarm or something. Then again, she'd watched him half-make breakfast and hadn't killed him yet… plus, she was gorgeous: pretty green eyes and a wild main of thick red hair. She was obviously a hero (or a villain, depends on how this confrontation went) because she was thin and lean yet powerfully built. Her arms were thick with muscle through her plain white tank top.

"About two hours." She said with a bluntness that made BB want to think it was truth. The way she said it was rather insulting and degrading to the Titan's security, meaning it probably _was_ true if she got that much enjoyment at flaunting it. "I've got to say, you guys need to open your eyes a bit more— even in your own place. Cyborg came in forty minutes ago to check the computer and Starfire passed through and even waved but didn't say anything. Raven's on the roof meditating, but you'd think she'd've pick up my presence by now. Or, maybe she has and just doesn't care." The red head tisked happily, obviously enjoying this immensely.

Beast Boy really didn't know what to say. So he stared.

"…"

".."

"…want some tofu waffle?" He finally asked cautiously.

She raised one incredulous eyebrow. "Sure." She accepted. He hesitated, still a little (ok, a LOT) thrown by this situation, but made her a plate.

"Most people don't like tofu." He said, out of lack of anything better to say.

"You don't say." She noted calmly, taking a bite and not reacting like Cyborg did, so he assumed she didn't mind tofu.

"Are you a vegetarian?" He wondered aloud.

"Not at all." She responded casually. "I assume you are as a byproduct of being animals half the time?" She challenged conversationally, taking another bite.

"Pretty much." He shrugged, watching her eat, still in some sort of shock.

"Are you going to eat or just stalk me while I eat alone?" She demanded, and he blinked.

Awkwardly he turned away and made himself a plate as well, leaning against the counter opposite where she sat at the island and eating too. The motions of eating didn't make it so awkward.

"So," She prompted chattily. "If you can turn into any animal, which is you _favorite_ animal?"

He blinked yet again.

"Dude, no one's ever asked me that before!" He said in surprise, frowning as he thought about it. "Uh, let's see… what about— no… well there's— no, not that… maybe… huh, I'm not sure. I guess I don't have one." He shrugged.

"Everyone has a favorite animal." She insisted.

"Well, what's yours?" He challenged.

"I asked first." She qualified. "It's not fair to ask questions instead of answering them."

He puzzled over that for a moment. "Who _are_ you?" He blurted out.

She raised one eyebrow again. "Did you not listen to a word I said? I'll tell you when you answer me." She said simply, taking another bite and pointedly pressing her lips together.

"How will I know you're even telling the truth!" He exclaimed.

She sniffed as if his insinuation was insulting. "I happen to be a _very _honest person, for your information, but I _don't_ take kindly to people hedging my questions. I will tell you the truth if _you_ tell the truth. You have my word." She dismissed him.

"I don't know if your word is worth a baloney sandwich," Beast Boy scoffed. "And how would _you_ know I'm telling the truth? Fine then, my favorite animal's a T-Rex." He said in triumph.

She shook her head knowingly, taking another bite with a sly look. "Nope. Doesn't count, because it's a lie."

"Oh, and how would you know?" He laughed.

"Because I am _that good."_ She said evenly with a cold, slightly crazy grin that suddenly made Beast Boy's own grin fade a little, his confidence suddenly waning.

"Tiger." He said.

"Lie." She countered smoothly.

"Rhino."

"Lie."

"Dog."

"Lie."

"Squirrel."

"Really? Complete lie."

"Bear, gorilla, panther, crocodile, piranha, cheetah, mouse, parrot, ant, fly, chinchilla, iguana, spider, hawk, eagle, shark, whale, elephant, fox, frog, cat, bat!" He shot out quickly in one breath.

"Lie, times twenty two. Interesting choices though." She noted cheekily.

He glared at the counter, honestly trying to think up a real answer, when Cyborg walked in.

"I smell lunch! _Please_ tell me it isn't tofu B, I don't think I can stomach one more-!" He came up short upon seeing who Beast Boy was talking to. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?" He shouted, sonic cannon out in a second and pointed at the red headed girl, who didn't even do more than glance his way and take a pointed bite out of her waffle to show she didn't care he had a weapon.

"Name's Barbara." She said evenly, swallowing her waffle and shooting him a casual grin.

"Woah, woah, woah! You tell _him_ but not me!?" Beast Boy demanded.

"I'm not waiting on him giving me an answer, now am I?" She accused right back lifting one eyebrow challengingly. He fell silent, frowning at that logic.

"FOCUS!" Cyborg yelled again. "Who the heck are you and why are you in our tower! And B, _why_ are you giving her waffles!?"

Beast Boy blinked, coming up short.

"He was being polite, which is more than I can say for _you."_ Barbara snorted, jamming her finger at his metal chest in a scolding way before turning back to her waffle. "You didn't so much as say _hello_ when you came in here earlier."

"WHAT!?" Cy squeaked (in a manly way, of course).

"Apparently she's been sitting here for two hours." Beast boy said unhelpfully.

"Yes, and instead of ignoring me, Beast Boy actually offered me breakfast, which is far nicer than yelling, wouldn't you say?" The red head asked innocently, taking her last bite of waffle triumphantly as Cyborg stared at her like she had two heads.

"Why are you in our tower?" He demanded.

Barbara frowned. "You didn't answer my question." She huffed.

"What!? That's not the point, why would I-?"

"Trust me, just answer her question." B cut in with a wide-eyed look to Cy, who sighed dramatically in defeat.

"Fine! _Yes_, it's nicer then yelling! Now would you _please_ tell me what the heck you're doing in out tower!" He pleaded.

"Oh, that's easy! I'm waiting for Nightwing." She said happily.

Cy and B exchanged surprised and bewildered looks.

"Why?" Beast Boy asked.

"Did you answer my question yet?" She hummed smugly. He frowned and started grumbling under his breath as he went back to thinking.

Cyborg rolled his eyes. "Fine then, _why_ are you waiting for Nightwing?"

"Oh, I'm going to kill him." The red head said in the same cheerfully bright voice.

"WOAH, WOAH, WOAH! We can't let you do that!" Cyborg yelled, aiming his sonic cannon at her again, Beast Boy brandishing his wooden spoon unhelpfully beside him.

Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. "Relax, not literally. Maybe." She brushed them off, checking her nails casually.

"Who are you!?" Beast Boy demanded of her.

"Name's Barbara, didn't you hear?" She smirked at him.

"No, I mean like how do you know Nightwing!? How did you get in here!? What the heck is going on!?" He howled.

"_You_ didn't answer my question yet, so _stuff it."_She quipped right back.

"ARGH!" Beast Boy threw his hands in the air in defeat. "I don't know what my favorite animal is! I honestly don't know!"

"And _that_, is the truth." Barbara nodded, giving him a look that said '_was that so hard?'. _

"Dude! THAT was the question you couldn't answer!?" Cyborg said in exasperation at BB.

"What!? It was a hard question for me!" The green boy said defensively.

"You two are ridiculous." A monotone voice said, as Raven came drifting in, taking a seat on the edge of the couch in the main area and opening a book carefully.

"What? You're not going to ask who she is?" Cyborg demanded, pointing to Barbara like blaming her for stealing a cookie, and the red head pushed his hand away in irritation.

"It's rude to point!" She scolded him, though he ignored her in favor of looking incredulously at the back of Raven's head.

"I sensed her three hours ago and she's done no harm nor do I think she's a threat. She has the same aura as Nightwing, so I figure she's a friend of his." The sorceress deadpanned, not bothering to turn around or look up from her book.

"See? No problem!" Barbara grinned triumphantly.

"Wait, _three_ hours!? You said you've been here for two!" Beast Boy cried.

"_Sitting_ _here_ for two. I was looking around at first." The red head shrugged while the boys gave her flabbergasted looks.

"It's not her fault you two are unusually unobservant." Raven said dryly without looking up, and Barbara let out a short laugh at that while the boys floundered.

"Who is this?" Starfire's voice came from the doorway, and they looked over to her watching Barbara curiously.

"Barbara." Said red head in question answered shortly, and the other three who'd already met her were slightly surprised by the stiff tone she had when talking to the alien girl. After all, she acted as if she already knew them so she must've known Starfire, and who could _not_ like Starfire, innocent and naïve as she was?

"Oh good! A new friend!" The red headed alien cheered happily floating over to where they stood in the kitchen. "I waved at you earlier, but I was needed to help Cyborg with his car and could not stay to talk to you properly! It is a pleasure to meet you, friend Barbara!" She chirped happily, hovering close to the new girl like she did when she was excited to meet new people.

"Likewise." The human red head said shortly, without much enthusiasm, and taking a step back in the name of personal space.

"Aaaaaaaand back to my question! WHY ARE YOU HERE!?" Cyborg demanded.

"To kill Nightwing, duh! Didn't I say that earlier?" Barbara smirked cockily up at him.

"Why would you want to kill friend Nightwing!?" Starfire fretted, looking concerned and worried.

"I have my reasons." Barbara said coolly to her, and no one but Starfire missed the way she so obviously had something against the Tamaranian. After all, she'd given a good reason not to answer the other's questions, but simply snipped Starfire just because.

"Every time Nightwing is brought up, you feel exceptionally angry and hurt." Raven said smoothly, finally glancing up and looking back at her. "But you feel no animosity to us… for the most part." Her pale purple eyes darting to Starfire as she spoke, something the boys didn't miss but didn't elaborate on, knowing Raven didn't vocalize it for a good reason. Starfire was oblivious to it all.

"Thank you for that, Miss. Empath." Barbara drawled sarcastically. "Why don't you start blabbing on how I feel about tofu waffles too while you're at it then, huh?"

"I hardly care." Raven responded emotionlessly turning back to her book.

"Touché." Barbara admitted with a shrug. Suddenly, she tilted her head as if she heard something and glanced at the main door. Her face screwed up into an irritated frown and went to stand at the top of the steps leading down from the kitchen to the main area, crossing her arms expectantly over her chest and glaring dangerously at the door in question.

"Did the door insult you or something?" Beast Boy asked in confusion, glancing between her and the door.

"No." She said casually, totally contradicting her angry look.

"Poor Nightwing." Raven sighed, continuing to read her book.

"Why poor Nightwing? We're not going to let her _actually_ kill him are we?" Cyborg demanded.

"Oh, I'm not gonna hurt him, I'm just going to make him regret ever being born." Barbara said lightly, still sounding odd coupled with her dangerous glare.

"'_Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.'"_ Raven quoted evenly, and Barbara just let out a sharp snort at that.

"But Nightwing can handle himself right? I mean, if he can take Slade yelling at him right in his face, he can handle a random girl can't he? Funny as it is a girl is after him in the first place." Beast Boy pointed out with a grin.

"No, no—not a random girl." Barbara corrected. "But his best friend he abandoned two years ago and never felt like contacting again until I managed to track him down." She ranted a bit acidly, and they all exchanged alarmed looks. "Not a _random girl, _but _**Bat**__girl."_She hissed, and two seconds later, before they could absorb that to react, the main door slid open and Nightwing walked in.

It took him half a second to spot them in the kitchen, and then another full second to process who was staring—sorry, _glaring—_at him expectantly front and center. And when he did, he stopped dead, freezing in his tracks like someone had pressed pause on life for him.

For an entire five seconds that could've been years for all the Titans' knew, the two Bats stared each other down.

Then they exploded at the same time.

"Babs please-!"

"You ass! You egotistical-!"

"I can explain-!"

"Don't you _dare-!"_

"I know, I know-!"

"TWO YEARS!"

"I _know_, please just-!"

"TWO FREAKING YEARS!"

"You know why I-!"

"That's not an excuse you-!"

"Please, just listen-!"

"I already know you moron! You think-!"

"No! I don't think! I _didn't_ think! I-!"

"Cowardly, moronic imbecile! I oughta-!"

"Please!"

"'Please' _what!?_ You expect-!"

"No, no! I wouldn't! I was wrong!"

"DAMN RIGHT YOU WERE!"

"I thought you'd, I don't know-!"

"LIKE HELL I WAS!"

"I know that now!"

"DAMN RIGHT YOU DO! TWO FREAKING YEARS YOU _ASS!_"

"Please, I-!"

"I had to hear it from that psychopathic brother of yours!"

"Oh god, I'm sorry Babs, please-!"

"Don't call me that! I revoke friendship until you make it up to me, _dick_! And that was _lowercase_ in case you missed it!"

"Please, just… argh! How!? How do I make it up to you!? It's not like I'm going to just up and _leave_ the Titans Babs!"

"And I don't expect you to," She snapped. By now they were both in the main area pacing in circles of each other, Barbara looking like she was a predator stalking her prey and Nightwing looking more jumpy than normal as he tried to avoid getting to close to her less she pounce and eat him whole. For their fearless leader, who was always composed and on top of things, he seemed to be all but begging her to listen and forgive him, and it was strange to watch to say the least.

The Titans were watching the exchange with wide eyes, totally not expecting this total one-eighty from both Nightwing and the girl they'd thought was pretty cool for the first fifteen minutes of knowing her.

"Then what do you want me to do!?" Nightwing pleaded with her.

"I _want_ you to not have left in the first place!" She yelled at him.

"That's unreasonable and you know it!" He demanded right back.

"Like _hell!_ That's what I want and screw you for leaving at all!" She snarled.

"What can I do _now?!"_ He begged.

"You can _call me_ once in a god damned while! I _know_ you talk to Rob, and eventhat little punk of a brother of yours! Why not me!? I get B, I even get A, but ME?! You're the asshole who got me into this gig in the first place, and then you up and _disappear_ on us!? WHAT THE HELL!"

"I know, I know, but you already said you know why I left…!"

"AND YOU DIDN'T THINK I FELT THE SAME WAY!? IT DIDN'T CROSS THAT NERD BRAIN OF YOURS I WOULD'VE COME WITH YOU!? JAY WAS **MY FRIEND TOO** YOU SELF-CENTERED EGOTICITCAL DOUCHEBAG!" She screeched. She let out what sounded like a strangled sob and turned away sharply, and when she came back, all traced of sorrow were vanished into anger again. "I was at the funeral too you idiot! _I _had to help B deal with him when he came back— not you, you selfish pig! Where were you but here in your little city with your own team at last! Well you know what, _screw you_ for abandoning us, I shoulda seen it coming!" She spat acidly.

"Babs…" He said weakly. "I… I didn't know, and I didn't think you…. I… I _really am_ sorry, and I can't do anything to change it now. But, as for where was I? I was_ there!_ I came back the minute I heard and talked him into leaving Gotham for Bludhaven. I'm sorry I wasn't there to prevent it, but I did what I could!"

"You let him go after the Joker again." She snarled.

Nightwing pursed his lips tightly. "I… I did." He admitted tensely. "If anyone has a reason to hate that clown, he does. I couldn't take that from him."

"You want the Joker dead too." She accused.

"Don't you?" He shrugged helplessly. Barbara seemed to be brought up short and couldn't answer for a moment though she looked furious that he was using her own opinions against her.

"But I would never _let_ him be killed! You know what that would do to B!"

"Of course I do!" He defended angrily. "I didn't kill him myself for that very reason! And I talked to Red, I gave him another option and he took it, didn't he!?"

Again, she couldn't answer and seemed even angrier that she couldn't respond, telling everyone Nightwing was right.

"And by letting him go, he trusts me now! I couldn't lose him again Babs, I just couldn't! I _needed_ him to trust me, and it was the only way!"

"You couldn't lose him, but what about me?" She demanded, her angry tone giving way to hurt. "You'd be willing to lose _me?"_

"What!? _No! _Not… you never— well other than leaving, you never had a reason to hate me! Jason did, and I just… I messed up, yes, but Babs… I didn't expect you to… I didn't know…"

"Rob must've told you." She accused sharply.

"And by then it was too late and I… avoided it."

"Avoided _me!"_

"I knew you'd be angry even if I hadn't originally thought you'd be and I… was scared, ok! I don't like upsetting you-!"

"Oh, _great job_ you've done at that have you!?"

"I didn't realize it'd upset you at the time and by the time I realized you were angry you were _really angry_, and-!"

"Coward!"

"Yes! I admit it! I don't like you being angry!"

"_Coward!"_

"Yes! I'm a coward! Are you _happy!?"_

"NO! No I am not _happy_, I'm freakin' PISSED!"

"I can't apologize anymore than I already have!"

"Then you can _run."_

"Well—wait, what?"

"You heard me: _run, _Bird Brains, _run."_

Nightwing gulped, and like that he was gone. For the first time they got to witness him going ninja, and he leapt into the air, arching and twisting until he was suddenly in the rafters and gone.

Barbara stood there, arms crossed angrily over her chest and glaring daggers into space.

One second passed.

Then two.

And suddenly she copied him, leaping up and twisting mid-air, springing nimbly off the side wall until she was also in the rafters, all the while maintaining the furious snarl on her face.

Then they were gone, and there was silence.

The Titans stood in silent shock at what had just happened.

Finally, Raven spoke up, turning back to her book in a business-like way.

"Remember boys, what happens when you date a superhero and then forget to call her." She said dryly.

Cyborg and Beast Boy exchanged wide-eyed looks and gulped audibly.


End file.
